I see no man doubts, gentlemen, that Gaius Verres openly despoiled all things sacred and profane, both privately and publicly, in Sicily, and was occupied in every kind of stealing and plundering with no scruple, indeed not even with any pretence of concealment. But a certain magnificent and distinguished defence is being shown me; how I shall withstand it I must consider long beforehand, gentlemen. For the case is so put: that the province of Sicily, by his virtue and singular vigilance in doubtful and fearful times, was kept safe from runaway slaves and from the perils of war.

nemini video dubium esse, iudices, quin apertissime C. Verres in Sicilia sacra profanaque omnia et privatim et publice spoliarit, versatusque sit sine ulla non modo religione verum etiam dissimulatione in omni genere furandi atque praedandi. sed quaedam mihi magnifica et praeclara eius defensio ostenditur; cui quem ad modum resistam multo mihi ante est, iudices, providendum. ita enim causa constituitur, provinciam Siciliam virtute istius et vigilantia singulari dubiis formidolosisque temporibus a fugitivis atque a belli periculis tutam esse servatam.

What shall I do, gentlemen? Whither shall I bring the reasoning of my prosecution? Whither shall I turn? For against all my onsets the name of a good general is set as a kind of wall. I know the place; I see where Hortensius will toss himself about. He will recall the perils of war, the times of the commonwealth, the want of generals. Then he will plead with you, then he will even contend, as of his right, that you should not allow such a general to be torn from the Roman people by the testimonies of Sicilians; that you should not wish a general’s praise to be ground down by charges of greed.

quid agam, iudices? quo accusationis meae rationem conferam? quo me vertam? ad omnis enim meos impetus quasi murus quidam boni nomen imperatoris opponitur. Novi locum; video ubi se iactaturus sit Hortensius. Belli pericula, tempora rei publicae, imperatorum penuriam commemorabit; tum deprecabitur a vobis, tum etiam pro suo iure contendet ne patiamini talem imperatorem populo Romano Siculorum testimoniis eripi, ne obteri laudem imperatoriam criminibus avaritiae velitis.

I cannot pretend, gentlemen, that I do not fear lest, on account of this singular virtue in military affairs, Gaius Verres should have done with impunity all that he has done. For there comes into my mind, in the trial of Manius Aquilius, how much authority, how much weight Marcus Antonius’s speech was reckoned to have had: who, as he was in speaking not only wise but also brave, with the case almost concluded himself snatched up Manius Aquilius and set him in the sight of all and tore his tunic from his breast, that the Roman people and the judges might see the scars taken on his front. At the same time about that wound which Aquilius had received in the head from the leader of the enemy he said much, and brought those who were going to judge to fear vehemently lest the man, whom fortune had snatched out of the weapons of enemies (when he had not himself spared himself), should seem kept not for the praise of the Roman people but for the cruelty of the judges.

non possum dissimulare, iudices; timeo ne C. Verres propter hanc eximiam virtutem in re militari omnia quae fecit impune fecerit. venit enim mihi in mentem in iudicio M’. Aquili quantum auctoritatis, quantum momenti oratio M. Antoni habuisse existimata sit; qui, ut erat in dicendo non solum sapiens sed etiam fortis, causa prope perorata ipse arripuit M’. Aquilium constituitque in conspectu omnium tunicamque eius a pectore abscidit, ut cicatrices populus Romanus iudicesque aspicerent adverso corpore exceptas; simul et de illo vulnere quod ille in capite ab hostium duce acceperat multa dixit, eoque adduxit eos qui erant iudicaturi vehementer ut vererentur ne, quem virum fortuna ex hostium telis eripuisset, cum sibi ipse non pepercisset, hic non ad populi Romani laudem sed ad iudicum crudelitatem videretur esse servatus.

The same method and way of defence is now tried by them; the same is sought. Let him be a thief, let him be sacrilegious, let him be the chief of all disgraces and vices: still, he is a good general, still, fortunate and to be reserved for the doubtful times of the commonwealth. I shall not deal with you on the highest right; I shall not say what I should perhaps establish, since the trial is by a fixed law: that not how bravely you have done in military affairs, but in what manner you have kept your hands from others’ moneys must be shown by you. I shall not, I say, deal so. But I shall ask, in the manner I see you wish, what your part has been in the war and how great.

eadem nunc ab illis defensionis ratio viaque temptatur, idem quaeritur. sit fur, sit sacrilegus, sit flagitiorum omnium vitiorumque princeps; at est bonus imperator, at felix et ad dubia rei publicae tempora reservandus. non agam summo iure tecum, non dicam id quod debeam forsitan obtinere, cum iudicium certa lege sit,—non quid in re militari fortiter feceris, sed quem ad modum manus ab alienis pecuniis abstinueris abs te doceri oportere; non, inquam, sic agam, sed ita quaeram, quem ad modum te velle intellego, quae tua opera et quanta fuerit in bello.

What do you say? That from the war of the runaways Sicily was freed by your virtue? Great praise and an honourable speech; but yet, in what war? For we, after that war which Manius Aquilius brought to an end, so received it: that there was no war of runaways in Sicily. "But there was in Italy." I confess; and a great and vehement one too. Do you then try to seek any part of praise out of that war? Do you reckon that the glory of that victory has been shared with you by Marcus Crassus or Gnaeus Pompeius? I do not think this is wanting yet to your shamelessness, that you should dare to say anything of that kind. You stood in the way, of course, lest the forces of the runaways could cross from Italy into Sicily. Where, when, from what quarter? When they tried to come either by rafts or by ships? For we have never heard of anything; but we have heard this: that by the virtue and counsel of Marcus Crassus, the bravest man, it was brought about that with rafts joined the runaways could not pass through the strait to Messana. From which attempt they need not so greatly have been hindered, if any defences in Sicily had been thought to be set up against their coming.

quid dicis? an bello fugitivorum Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? Magna laus et honesta oratio; sed tamen quo bello? nos enim, post illud bellum quod M’. Aquilius confecit, sic accepimus, nullum in Sicilia fugitivorum bellum fuisse. ’ at in Italia fuit.’ fateor, et magnum quidem ac vehemens. num igitur ex eo bello partem aliquam laudis appetere conaris? num tibi illius victoriae gloriam cum M. Crasso aut Cn. Pompeio communicatam putas? non arbitror hoc etiam tuae deesse impudentiae, ut quicquam eius modi dicere audeas. obstitisti videlicet ne ex Italia transire in Siciliam fugitivorum copiae possent. Vbi, quando, qua ex parte? cum aut ratibus aut navibus conarentur accedere? nos enim nihil umquam prorsus audivimus, sed illud audivimus, M. Crassi, fortissimi viri, virtute consilioque factum ne ratibus coniunctis freto fugitivi ad Messanam transire possent, a quo illi conatu non tanto opere prohibendi fuissent, si ulla in Sicilia praesidia ad illorum adventum opposita putarentur.

But, although there was war in Italy so near to Sicily, yet in Sicily there was none. What wonder? Not even when there was in Sicily, at the same distance, did any part of that war pass over into Italy. For the nearness of places is brought forward in this matter to which point? Whether that the approach was easy to the enemy, or that the contagion of imitating the war was perilous? Every approach to men without any means of ships is not only sundered but even shut, so that for those to whom you say Sicily was near it would have been easier to come to Ocean than to come to Pelorus.

at cum esset in Italia bellum tam prope a Sicilia, tamen in Sicilia non fuit. quid mirum? ne cum in Sicilia quidem fuit eodem intervallo, pars eius belli in Italiam ulla pervasit. etenim propinquitas locorum ad utram partem hoc loco profertur? utrum aditum facilem hostibus an contagionem imitandi belli periculosam fuisse? aditus omnis hominibus sine ulla facultate navium non modo disiunctus sed etiam clausus est, ut illis quibus Siciliam propinquam fuisse dicis facilius fuerit ad Oceanum pervenire quam ad Peloridem accedere.

But that contagion of the slave war — why is it proclaimed by you rather than by all those who held the rest of the provinces? Or because in Sicily before there had been wars of runaways? But that very thing is the cause why that province is and has been in the least peril. For after Manius Aquilius departed thence, the institutions and edicts of all the praetors were such that no slave should be with a weapon. The thing I shall tell is old, and on account of the strictness of the example perhaps not unheard by any of you: that Lucius Domitius, when he was praetor in Sicily, when a great boar had been brought to him, in wonder asked who had killed it. When he had heard that he was a certain shepherd, he ordered him to be summoned to him. The man hurried eagerly to the praetor as if for praise and reward. Domitius asked who had struck so great a beast. He answered, with a hunting-spear; immediately, by the praetor’s order, he was lifted up on the cross. Perhaps this seems harsh; nor do I argue either way. I only see this: that Domitius preferred to seem cruel in animadverting than slack in passing over.

contagio autem ista servilis belli cur abs te potius quam ab iis omnibus qui ceteras provincias obtinuerunt praedicatur? an quod in Sicilia iam antea bella fugitivorum fuerunt? at ea ipsa causa est cur ista provincia minimo in periculo sit et fuerit. nam posteaquam illinc M’. Aquilius decessit, omnium instituta atque edicta praetorum fuerunt eius modi ut ne quis cum telo servus esset. vetus est quod dicam, et propter severitatem exempli nemini fortasse vestrum inauditum, L. Domitium praetorem in Sicilia, cum aper ingens ad eum adlatus esset, admiratum requisisse quis eum percussisset; cum audisset pastorem cuiusdam fuisse, eum vocari ad se iussisse; illum cupide ad praetorem quasi ad laudem atque ad praemium accucurrisse; quaesisse Domitium qui tantam bestiam percussisset; illum respondisse, venabulo; statim deinde iussu praetoris in crucem esse sublatum. durum hoc fortasse videatur, neque ego ullam in partem disputo: tantum intellego, maluisse Domitium crudelem in animadvertendo quam in praetermittendo dissolutum videri.

So with these institutions of the province even when in the war of the allies all Italy was ablaze, a man not most fierce nor most brave, Gaius Norbanus, was in the highest leisure. For Sicily then was easily defending herself, that no war could arise from herself. For when nothing is so joined as our businessmen with the Sicilians by use, by matter, by reason, by concord; and since the Sicilians themselves have their affairs so set up that peace is to their interest, but love the empire of the Roman people so that they would by no means wish it to be lessened or changed; and since these dangers from a slave war have been provided against both by the institutions of praetors and by the discipline of masters — there is no domestic ill that can arise from the very province.

ergo his institutis provinciae iam tum, cum bello sociorum tota Italia arderet, homo non acerrimus nec fortissimus, C. Norbanus, in summo otio fuit: perfacile enim sese Sicilia iam tuebatur, ut ne quod ex ipsa bellum posset exsistere. etenim cum nihil tam coniunctum sit quam negotiatores nostri cum Siculis usu, re, ratione, concordia, et cum ipsi Siculi res suas ita constitutas habeant ut iis pacem expediat esse, imperium autem populi Romani sic diligant ut id imminui aut commutari minime velint, cumque haec a servorum bello pericula et praetorum institutis et dominorum disciplina provisa sint, nullum est malum domesticum quod ex ipsa provincia nasci possit.

What then? Are no movements of slaves under Verres as praetor said to have happened? No conspiracies? Nothing indeed that came to the senate or to the Roman people; nothing which he himself wrote publicly to Rome. And yet I suspect that in some places in Sicily it began to be stirred up. This I learn not so much from the matter as from his own deeds and decrees. And see with what no hostile mind I shall act: I myself shall recall and bring forth those things which he seeks, which up to now you have never heard.

quid igitur? nulline motus in Sicilia servorum Verre praetore, nullaene consensiones factae esse dicuntur? nihil sane quod ad senatum populumque Romanum pervenerit, nihil quod iste publice Romam scripserit; et tamen coeptum esse in Sicilia moveri aliquot locis servitium suspicor. id adeo non tam ex re quam ex istius factis decretisque cognosco. ac videte quam non inimico animo sim acturus: ego ipse haec quae ille quaerit, quae adhuc numquam audistis, commemorabo et proferam.

In the territory of Triocala, a place which the runaways once held before, the household of a certain Sicilian Leonidas was called into suspicion of conspiracy. The matter is reported to him. At once, as was fitting, by his order the men who had been named were arrested and brought to Lilybaeum. Notice was given to the master; the case was pleaded; they were condemned. What then? What do you suppose? Theft perhaps, or some plunder, you await. Do not always look for the same thing. In the fear of war what place can there be for stealing? Even if there was, in this case the chance was passed over. Then he might have taken some money from Leonidas, when he gave him notice to be at hand; there was some bargaining, and not new for him, that they should not plead. There was also another place: that they should be acquitted. But with the slaves once condemned, what reckoning can there be of plunder? They must be brought out for punishment. For there are witnesses who were on the council; the public records are witnesses; the most splendid city of Lilybaeum is witness; the most honourable and largest assize of Roman citizens is witness: nothing can be done; they must be brought out. So they are brought out and bound to the stake.

in Triocalino, quem locum fugitivi iam ante tenuerunt, Leonidae cuiusdam Siculi familia in suspicionem est vocata coniurationis. res delata ad istum. statim, ut par fuit, iussu eius homines qui fuerant nominati comprehensi sunt adductique Lilybaeum; domino denuntiatum est, causa dicta, damnati. quid deinde? quid censetis? furtum fortasse aut praedam exspectatis aliquam. nolite usque quaque idem quaerere. in metu belli furandi locus qui potest esse? etiam si qua fuit in hac re occasio praetermissa est. tum potuit a Leonida nummorum aliquid auferre, cum denuntiavit ut adesset; fuit nundinatio aliqua, et isti non nova, ne causam dicerent; etiam alter locus, ut absolverentur: damnatis quidem servis quae praedandi potest esse ratio? produci ad supplicium necesse est. testes enim sunt qui in consilio fuerunt, testes publicae tabulae, testis splendidissima civitas Lilybitana, testis honestissimus maximusque conventus civium Romanorum: fieri nihil potest, producendi sunt. itaque producuntur et ad palum alligantur.

Even now, gentlemen, you seem to me to await what was done next, since this man never did anything without some gain and plunder. What in such a matter could be done? Whatever you please, await any deed however dishonest. I will yet outrun the expectation of all. Men condemned of crime and conspiracy, handed over for punishment, bound to the stake, suddenly, with many thousands of men looking on, were loosed and given back to that Triocalan master. What can you say in this place, most senseless of men, save what I do not ask: which finally in a thing so unspeakable, although there can be no doubt, yet, even if there were doubt, ought not to be asked: what or how much or in what manner you took? I leave the whole of this to you and free you from that care. For I do not fear that anyone will be persuaded that you, into a deed to which no one but you could have been led by any sum of money, tried to enter freely. But of that method of stealing and plundering I say nothing: of this generalship’s praise of yours I am now disputing.

etiam nunc mihi exspectare videmini, iudices, quid deinde factum sit, quod iste nihil umquam fecit sine aliquo quaestu atque praeda. quid in eius modi re fieri potuit? quod commodum est, exspectate facinus quam vultis improbum; vincam tamen exspectationem omnium. homines sceleris coniurationisque damnati, ad supplicium traditi, ad palum alligati, repente multis milibus hominum inspectantibus soluti sunt et Triocalino illi domino redditi. quid hoc loco potes dicere, homo amentissime, nisi id quod ego non quaero, quod denique in re tam nefaria, tametsi dubitari non potest, tamen ne si dubitetur quidem quaeri oporteat, quid aut quantum aut quo modo acceperis? remitto tibi hoc totum atque ista te cura libero; neque enim metuo ne hoc cuiquam persuadeatur, ut, ad quod facinus nemo praeter te ulla pecunia adduci potuerit, id tu gratis suscipere conatus sis. verum de ista furandi praedandique ratione nihil dico, de hac imperatoria iam tua laude disputo.

What say you, good guardian and defender of the province? Did you dare to snatch from the very midst of death and free those slaves whom you knew had wished to take up arms and make war in Sicily, and whom from the opinion of the council you had judged — now handed over to punishment by the custom of our ancestors — that the cross which you had fixed for the condemned slaves you might keep for the unsentenced Roman citizens? Ruined states with all things now despaired of are wont to have these deadly outcomes: that the condemned be restored entire, the bound be loosed, the exiles be brought back, the things judged be rescinded. When these happen, no one fails to understand that the commonwealth is rushing where these things come up; no one thinks that any hope of safety is left.

quid ais, bone custos defensorque provinciae? tu quos servos arma capere et bellum facere in Sicilia voluisse cognoras et de consili sententia iudicaras, hos ad supplicium iam more maiorum traditos ex media morte eripere ac liberare ausus es, ut, quam damnatis crucem servis fixeras, hanc indemnatis videlicet civibus Romanis reservares? perditae civitates desperatis iam omnibus rebus hos solent exitus exitialis habere, ut damnati in integrum restituantur, vincti solvantur, exsules reducantur, res iudicatae rescindantur. quae cum accidunt, nemo est quin intellegat ruere illam rem publicam haec ubi eveniant; nemo est qui ullam spem salutis reliquam esse arbitretur.

And these things, if anywhere they have been done, have been done in such a way that popular men or noblemen were freed from punishment or exile; but not by those very men who had judged, not at once, not those condemned of those deeds which had to do with the life and the fortunes of all. But this is new and of such a kind that it seems credible more on account of the defendant than on account of the matter itself: that he should let go slaves; that he himself, who had judged, should at once let them go from the very midst of punishment; that he should let go slaves condemned of that crime which had to do with the life and blood of all free men.

atque haec sicubi facta sunt ita facta sunt ut homines populares aut nobiles supplicio aut exsilio levarentur, at non ab iis ipsis qui iudicassent, at non statim, at non eorum facinorum damnati quae ad vitam et ad fortunas omnium pertinerent. hoc vero novum et eius modi est ut magis propter reum quam propter rem ipsam credibile videatur, ut homines servos, ut ipse qui iudicarat, ut statim e medio supplicio dimiserit, ut eius facinoris damnatos servos quod ad omnium liberorum caput et sanguinem pertineret.

O distinguished general, no longer to be compared with Manius Aquilius, that bravest of men, but in truth with the Pauli, the Scipios, the Marii! That he should have foreseen so much in the fear and danger of the province! When he saw the minds of the slaves in Sicily on edge on account of the war of the runaways in Italy, lest any should dare to stir himself, what fear did he throw in! He ordered them to be arrested. Who would not be terrified? The masters to plead the case. What for the slave so dreadful? They are seen to have done it — so he proclaims. He seems to have put out a flame springing up by the grief and death of a few. What follows next? Floggings and fires and those last things appointed for the punishment of the condemned, the fear of the rest, tortures and the cross. From all these punishments they were freed. Who can doubt that he pressed down the spirits of the slaves by the highest fear, when they saw that praetor of such ease that with him the life of slaves condemned of crime and conspiracy could be ransomed even with the executioner himself as go-between?

O praeclarum imperatorem nec iam cum M’. Aquilio, fortissimo viro, sed vero cum Paulis, Scipionibus, Mariis conferendum! tantumne vidisse in metu periculoque provinciae! cum servitiorum animos in Sicilia suspensos propter bellum Italiae fugitivorum videret, ne quis se commovere auderet, quantum terroris iniecit! comprendi iussit; quis non pertimescat? causam dicere dominos; quid servo tam formidolosum? FECISSE VIDERI pronuntiat; exortam videtur flammam paucorum dolore ac morte restinxisse. quid deinde sequitur? verbera atque ignes et illa extrema ad supplicium damnatorum, metum ceterorum, cruciatus et crux. hisce omnibus suppliciis sunt liberati. quis dubitet quin servorum animos summa formidine oppresserit, cum viderent ea facilitate praetorem ut ab eo servorum sceleris coniurationisque damnatorum vita vel ipso carnifice internuntio redimeretur?

What? In the case of Aristodamus of Apollonia, what? In that of Leon of Imachara, did you not do the same? What? That movement of slaves and that sudden suspicion of war — did it bring you a diligence in guarding the province, or a new method of most dishonest gain? When the bailiff of Eumenides of Halicyae — a noble and honourable man, a wealthy man — had been accused at your prompting, you took 60,000 sesterces from his master, who lately himself sworn taught in what manner the thing was done. From the Roman knight Gaius Matrinius, in his absence, when he was at Rome, because you had said that his bailiffs and shepherds had come into your suspicion, you carried off 600,000 sesterces. This Lucius Flavius said — the agent of Gaius Matrinius, who counted out that money to you; Matrinius himself said it; the most distinguished man, Gnaeus Lentulus the censor, says it, who, for the sake of Matrinius’s honour, in the recent business sent letters to you and saw to their being sent.

quid? hoc in Apolloniensi Aristodamo, quid? in Leonte Imacharensi non idem fecisti? quid? iste motus servitiorum bellique subita suspicio utrum tibi tandem diligentiam custodiendae provinciae an novam rationem improbissimi quaestus attulit? Halicyensis Eumenidae, nobilis hominis et honesti, magnae pecuniae vilicus cum impulsu tuo insimulatus esset, HS LX a domino accepisti, quod nuper ipse iuratus docuit quem ad modum gestum esset. ab equite Romano C. Matrinio absente, cum is esset Romae, quod eius vilicos pastoresque tibi in suspicionem venisse dixeras, HS DC abstulisti. dixit hoc L. Flavius, qui tibi eam pecuniam numeravit, procurator C. Matrini, dixit ipse Matrinius, dicit vir clarissimus, Cn. Lentulus censor, qui Matrini honoris causa recenti negotio ad te litteras misit mittendasque curavit.

What? About Apollonius, son of Diocles, of Panhormus, whose surname is the Twin — can it be passed over? Is anything more famous than this in all Sicily, anything more unworthy, anything more manifest can be brought forth? Whom, when he came to Panhormus, he ordered to be summoned to him and called from the tribunal at the great gathering and frequency of the assembly. Men at once began to say: "I wondered that Apollonius, a wealthy man, should have remained for so long untouched by him; he has devised something I know not what, has brought something I know not what; surely a rich man is not without cause suddenly summoned by Verres." There was the highest expectation of all what it was, when, without breath, suddenly Apollonius himself ran up with his young son. For the father, an old man, had long been kept in bed.

quid? de Apollonio, Diocli filio, Panhormitano, cui gemino cognomen est, praeteriri potest? ecquid hoc tota Sicilia clarius, ecquid indignius, ecquid manifestius proferri potest? quem, ut Panhormum venit, ad se vocari et de tribunali citari iussit concursu magno frequentiaque conventus. homines statim loqui: ’ mirabar quod Apollonius, homo pecuniosus, tam diu ab isto maneret integer; excogitavit nescio quid, nescio quid attulit; profecto homo dives repente a Verre non sine causa citatur.’ exspectatio summa omnium quidnam id esset, cum exanimatus subito ipse accurrit cum adulescente filio; nam pater grandis natu iam diu lecto tenebatur.

This man names a slave whom he said was the master of the herd; says he conspired and stirred up the households (there was no slave at all by that name in the household). He orders him to be at once produced. Apollonius affirmed that he had no slave at all by that name. This man orders the man to be snatched from the tribunal and thrown into prison. He cried as he was being snatched away that he, wretched, had done nothing, had committed nothing; that his money was in loans, that he did not have it ready in cash. While he was protesting this, in the highest gathering of men, in such a way that anyone could understand that, because he had not given money, he was therefore being afflicted with that bitter wrong — while, as I say, he was crying out about money, he was thrown into chains.

nominat iste servum, quem magistrum pecoris esse diceret; eum dicit coniurasse et familias concitasse, —is omnino servus in familia non erat,—eum statim exhiberi iubet. Apollonius adfirmare se omnino nomine illo servum habere neminem: iste hominem abripi a tribunali et in carcerem conici iubet. clamare ille, cum raperetur, nihil se miserum fecisse, nihil commisisse, pecuniam sibi esse in nominibus, numeratam in praesentia non habere. haec cum maxime summa hominum frequentia testificaretur, ut quivis intellegere posset eum, quod pecuniam non dedisset, idcirco illa tam acerba iniuria adfici—cum maxime, ut dico, hoc de pecunia clamaret, in vincla coniectus est.

See the consistency of the praetor, and a praetor who in these matters is to be defended not as a middling praetor but to be praised as the best general. When a slave war was being feared, with what punishment he was afflicting masters unsentenced, with that he was freeing condemned slaves. Apollonius, a most well-off man, who, if the runaways should make war in Sicily, would lose the most ample fortunes, he threw into chains under the name of the runaways’ war, the case unheard. The slaves whom he himself by the opinion of the council had judged to have agreed for the sake of making war, those, without the council’s opinion, of his own accord he freed from every punishment.

videte constantiam praetoris, et eius praetoris qui in his rebus non ita defendatur ut mediocris praetor, sed ita laudetur ut optimus imperator. cum servorum bellum metueretur, quo supplicio dominos indemnatos adficiebat, hoc servos damnatos liberabat: Apollonium, hominem locupletissimum, qui, si fugitivi bellum in Sicilia facerent, amplissimas fortunas amitteret, belli fugitivorum nomine indicta causa in vincla coniecit: servos, quos ipse de consili sententia belli faciendi causa consensisse iudicavit, eos sine consili sententia sua sponte omni supplicio liberavit.

What? If something was committed by Apollonius for which he should rightly have been animadverted upon, shall we yet so handle this matter that we should think the defendant ought to be the subject of charge or hatred if he should have judged some man strictly? I shall not deal so bitterly; I shall not use that prosecutor’s habit, that, if anything has been done leniently, I should charge it as done loosely; if anything has been punished strictly, I should out of that gather a hatred of cruelty. I shall not deal in that fashion. I shall follow your own judgements; I shall defend your authority, as long as you wish. As soon as you yourself begin to rescind your own judgements, cease to be angry with me; for by my own right I shall contend that he who has been condemned by his own judgement ought to be condemned by the votes of jurors under oath.

quid? si aliquid ab Apollonio commissum est quam ob rem in eum iure animadverteretur, tamenne hanc rem sic agemus ut crimini aut invidiae reo putemus esse oportere si quo de homine severius iudicaverit? non agam tam acerbe, non utar ista accusatoria consuetudine, si quid est factum clementer, ut dissolute factum criminer, si quid vindicatum est severe, ut ex eo crudelitatis invidiam colligam. non agam ista ratione; tua sequar iudicia, tuam defendam auctoritatem, quoad tu voles; simul ac tute coeperis tua iudicia rescindere, mihi suscensere desinito; meo iure enim contendam eum qui suo iudicio damnatus sit iuratorum iudicum sententiis damnari oportere.

I shall not defend the case of my friend and guest-friend Apollonius, lest I should seem to rescind your judgement. I shall say nothing about the man’s thrift, virtue, diligence. I shall pass over even what I said before: that his fortunes were so set up in households, in cattle, in farms, in lent moneys, that nothing was more disadvantageous to anyone than that any tumult or war in Sicily should be stirred up. I shall not even say this: that, although Apollonius were most in fault, yet against the most honourable man of a most honourable city it ought not have been animadverted so heavily, his case unheard.

non defendam Apolloni causam, amici atque hospitis mei, ne tuum iudicium videar rescindere; nihil de hominis frugalitate, virtute, diligentia dicam; praetermittam illud etiam de quo ante dixi, fortunas eius ita constitutas fuisse familia, pecore, villis, pecuniis creditis ut nemini minus expediret ullum in Sicilia tumultum aut bellum commoveri; non dicam ne illud quidem, si maxime in culpa fuerit Apollonius, tamen in hominem honestissimae civitatis honestissimum tam graviter animadverti causa indicta non oportuisse.

I shall stir up no hatred against you even by these things: that, though such a man was in prison, in darkness, in squalor, in filth — by your tyrannical interdicts the father, an old man, and his young son were never given the power of approaching that wretched man. Even this I shall pass over: how often you came to Panhormus in that year and six months — for so long Apollonius was in prison — so often you came as suppliant before the senate of Panhormus, with the magistrates and public priests, asking and beseeching that that wretched and innocent man might at last be freed from that calamity. I leave aside all these things, which, if I should wish to pursue, I should easily show that by your cruelty against others all approaches of pity from the judges have long since been closed off to you.

nullam in te invidiam ne ex illis quidem rebus concitabo, cum esset talis vir in carcere, in tenebris, in squalore, in sordibus, tyrannicis interdictis tuis patri exacta aetate et adulescenti filio adeundi ad illum miserum potestatem numquam esse factam. etiam illud praeteribo, quotienscumque Panhormum veneris illo anno et sex mensibus— nam tam diu fuit Apollonius in carcere—totiens te senatum Panhormitanum adisse supplicem, cum magistratibus sacerdotibusque publicis, orantem atque obsecrantem ut aliquando ille miser atque innocens calamitate illa liberaretur. relinquo haec omnia; quae si velim persequi, facile ostendam tua crudelitate in alios omnis tibi aditus misericordiae iudicum iam pridem esse praeclusos.

All these I shall grant you and remit. For I foresee what Hortensius is about to defend. He will confess that with this man neither the old age of the father nor the youth of the son nor the tears of both prevailed more than the advantage and safety of the province. He will say that the commonwealth cannot be administered without fear and strictness. He will ask why the fasces are carried before praetors, why axes have been given them, why a prison has been built, why so many punishments have been established against the dishonest by the custom of our ancestors. When he has said all these things gravely and strictly, I shall ask why this same Verres ordered this same Apollonius suddenly, with no new thing brought forward, with no defence, without cause, to be let out of prison. I shall affirm that there is so much suspicion in this charge that I shall now allow the very judges to make a guess without my arguing what kind of plundering this is, how dishonest, how unworthy, and to what magnitude of gain it seems boundless and unlimited.

omnia tibi ista concedam et remittam; provideo enim quid sit defensurus Hortensius; fatebitur apud istum neque senectutem patris neque adulescentiam fili neque lacrimas utriusque plus s valuisse quam utilitatem salutemque provinciae; dicet rem publicam administrari sine metu ac severitate non posse; quaeret quam ob rem fasces praetoribus praeferantur, cur secures datae, cur carcer aedificatus, cur tot supplicia sint in improbos more maiorum constituta. quae cum omnia graviter severeque dixerit, quaeram cur hunc eundem Apollonium Verres idem repente nulla re nova adlata, nulla defensione, sine causa de carcere emitti iusserit; tantumque in hoc crimine suspicionis esse adfirmabo ut iam ipsis iudicibus sine mea argumentatione coniecturam facere permittam quod hoc genus praedandi, quam improbum, quam indignum, quamque ad magnitudinem quaestus immensum infinitumque esse videatur.

For what he did in the case of Apollonius — learn first briefly how many and how great they are; then weigh and assess these in money. You will find that they were established in one wealthy man so as to set the rest fears of like hurts and examples of perils. First a sudden charge of a capital and odious crime — determine how much you reckon this and how many bought themselves off from it. Next, a charge with no accuser, a sentence with no council, a condemnation with no defence — assess the prices of all these things and consider that in these injustices Apollonius alone stuck, that the rest, surely many, freed themselves from these hurts by money. Finally darkness, chains, prison, shut-in punishment, and being shut off from the sight of parents and children, finally from free breath and the common light — these things, indeed, which can rightly even be ransomed with one’s life, I cannot assess in money.

nam quae iste in Apollonio fecit, ea primum breviter cognoscite quot et quanta sint, deinde haec expendite atque aestimate pecunia: reperietis idcirco haec in uno homine pecunioso tot constituta ut ceteris formidines similium incommodorum atque exempla periculorum proponeret. primum insimulatio est repentina capitalis atque invidiosi criminis,—statuite quanti hoc putetis et quam multos redemisse; deinde crimen sine accusatore, sententia sine consilio, damnatio sine defensione, —aestimate harum omnium rerum pretia et cogitate in his iniquitatibus unum haesisse Apollonium, ceteros profecto multos ex his incommodis pecunia se liberasse; postremo tenebrae, vincla, carcer, inclusum supplicium atque a conspectu parentium ac liberum, denique a libero spiritu atque a communi luce seclusum,—haec vero, quae vel vita redimi recte possunt, aestimare pecunia non queo.

All these things Apollonius too late ransomed, now ruined by sorrow and miseries. But yet he taught the rest to forestall this man’s greed and crime. Unless perhaps you think that a most wealthy man was chosen without cause of gain for so incredible a charge, or without the same cause was suddenly let out of prison; or that this kind of plundering was attempted and tried by him in this one alone, and was not through him set out and thrown at all the wealthiest Sicilians.

haec omnia sero redemit Apollonius iam maerore ac miseriis perditus, sed tamen ceteros docuit ante istius avaritiae scelerique occurrere; nisi vero existimatis hominem pecuniosissimum sine causa quaestus electum ad tam incredibile crimen aut sine eadem causa repente e carcere emissum, aut hoc praedandi genus ab isto in illo uno adhibitum ac temptatum, et non per illum omnibus pecuniosissimis Siculis metum propositum et iniectum.

I wish, gentlemen, since I am speaking of his military glory, that he should suggest to me, if perhaps I omit anything. For I seem to myself now to have spoken of all his deeds which had to do with the suspicion of a war of runaways. Surely I have not knowingly passed over anything. You have the man’s counsels, his diligence, his vigilance, his guardianship and defence of the province. The sum of it points to this: that you should know, since there are several kinds of generals, of which kind he is, lest in such great want of brave men anyone should remain ignorant of such a general. Not to the wisdom of Quintus Maximus, not to the speed in carrying through affairs of that earlier Africanus, not to the singular counsel of him who was afterwards, not to the reckoning and discipline of Paulus, not to the force and virtue of Gaius Marius — but a different kind of general, surely diligently to be retained and kept, learn, please.

cupio mihi ab illo, iudices, subici, quoniam de militari eius gloria dico, si quid forte praetereo. nam mihi videor iam de omnibus rebus eius gestis dixisse, quae quidem ad belli fugitivorum suspicionem pertinerent; certe nihil sciens praetermisi. habetis hominis consilia, diligentiam, vigilantiam, custodiam defensionemque provinciae. summa illuc pertinet, ut sciatis, quoniam plura genera sunt imperatorum, ex quo genere iste sit, ne qui diutius in tanta penuria virorum fortium talem imperatorem ignorare possit. non ad Q. Maximi sapientiam neque ad illius superioris Africani in re gerunda celeritatem, neque ad huius qui postea fuit singulare consilium, neque ad Pauli rationem ac disciplinam, neque ad C. Mari vim atque virtutem; sed aliud genus imperatoris sane diligenter retinendum et conservandum, quaeso, cognoscite.

First the toil of journeyings, which is the greatest in military affairs, gentlemen, and most necessary in Sicily, hear in what manner he made easy and pleasant for himself by reasoning and counsel. First, in winter times against the size of the cold and the force of the storms and the floods, he had prepared this distinguished remedy for himself. He had chosen the city of Syracuse, whose situation and the nature of whose place and sky is said to be such that no day was ever of so great and so troubled a storm but at some moment of that day men have seen the sun. Here this good general so lived in the winter months that no one easily saw him not only out of the house, but not even out of the bed. So the shortness of the day was filled with banquets, the length of the night with debaucheries and disgraces.

itinerum primum laborem, qui vel maximus est in re militari, iudices, et in Sicilia maxime necessarius, accipite quam facilem sibi iste et iucundum ratione consilioque reddiderit. primum temporibus hibernis ad magnitudinem frigorum et tempestatum vim ac fluminum praeclarum hoc sibi remedium compararat. Vrbem Syracusas elegerat, cuius hic situs atque haec natura esse loci caelique dicitur ut nullus umquam dies tam magna ac turbulenta tempestate fuerit quin aliquo tempore eius diei solem homines viderint. hic ita vivebat iste bonus imperator hibernis mensibus ut eum non facile non modo extra tectum, sed ne extra lectum quidem quisquam viderit; ita diei brevitas conviviis, noctis longitudo stupris et flagitiis continebatur.

But when spring had begun — whose beginning he marked not from the west wind nor from any star, but, when he had seen a rose, then he reckoned spring beginning — he gave himself to labour and to journeys. In which he showed himself so patient and tireless that no one ever saw him sitting on a horse. For, as was the custom of the kings of Bithynia, he was carried in a litter borne by eight, in which there was a most translucent Maltese cushion stuffed with rose. He himself wore one wreath on his head, another on his neck, and held to his nostrils a little net of the finest linen, with small meshes, full of rose. So when, the journey thus made, he had come to some town, in the same litter he was carried even to his bedroom. Thither came the magistrates of the Sicilians, came the Roman knights, which you have heard from many under oath. Disputes were brought to him in secret; a little later openly the decrees were carried off. Then, when he had for a little while in his bedroom apportioned out justice not by equity but by price, he reckoned the rest of the time owed to Venus and Liber.

cum autem ver esse coeperat—cuius initium iste non a Favonio neque ab aliquo astro notabat, sed cum rosam viderat tum incipere ver arbitrabatur—dabat se labori atque itineribus; in quibus eo usque se praebebat patientem atque impigrum ut eum nemo umquam in equo sedentem viderit. nam, ut mos fuit Bithyniae regibus, lectica octaphoro ferebatur, in qua pulvinus erat perlucidus Melitensis rosa fartus; ipse autem coronam habebat unam in capite, alteram in collo, reticulumque ad naris sibi admovebat tenuissimo lino, minutis maculis, plenum rosae. sic confecto itinere cum ad aliquod oppidum venerat, eadem lectica usque in cubiculum deferebatur. eo veniebant Siculorum magistratus, veniebant equites Romani, id quod ex multis iuratis audistis; controversiae secreto deferebantur, paulo post palam decreta auferebantur. deinde ubi paulisper in cubiculo pretio non aequitate iura discripserat, Veneri iam et libero reliquum tempus deberi arbitrabatur.

Here it seems to me must not be passed over the singular and outstanding diligence of the distinguished general. For know that there was no town in Sicily of those towns in which the praetors are wont to be stationed and to hold the assize, in which town there was not for him a woman chosen for his lust out of some not unrenowned family. So some out of that number were brought openly to his banquets; if any were more chaste, they came at the time, avoided the daylight and the gathering. But the banquets were not of that silence of the praetors and generals of the Roman people, nor of that modesty which is wont to be in the banquets of magistrates, but with the loudest shouting and abuse. Sometimes the matter was even carried to a fight and to fists. For this stern and diligent praetor, who had never obeyed the laws of the Roman people, was diligently obeying those laws which were laid down at the cups. So the outcomes were such that one was carried out of the banquet between hands as out of a battle, another was left as if dead, most lay loose without mind and without any sense — so that anyone who saw it would think he was looking not at the banquet of a praetor, but at the Battle of Cannae of wickedness.

quo loco non mihi praetermittenda videtur praeclari imperatoris egregia ac singularis diligentia. nam scitote oppidum esse in Sicilia nullum ex iis oppidis in quibus consistere praetores et conventum agere soleant, quo in oppido non isti ex aliqua familia non ignobili delecta ad libidinem mulier esset. itaque non nullae ex eo numero in convivium adhibebantur palam; si quae castiores erant, ad tempus veniebant, lucem conventumque vitabant. erant autem convivia non illo silentio populi Romani praetorum atque imperatorum, neque eo pudore qui in magistratuum conviviis versari soleat, sed cum maximo clamore atque convicio; non numquam etiam res ad pugnam atque ad manus vocabatur. iste enim praetor severus ac diligens, qui populi Romani legibus numquam paruisset, illis legibus quae in poculis ponebantur diligenter obtemperabat. itaque erant exitus eius modi ut alius inter manus e convivio tamquam e proelio auferretur, alius tamquam occisus relinqueretur, plerique ut fusi sine mente ac sine ullo sensu iacerent,—ut quivis, cum aspexisset, non se praetoris convivium, sed Cannensem pugnam nequitiae videre arbitraretur.

But when high summer had begun — a time which all praetors of Sicily have always been wont to spend in journeys, because then they think that the province must above all be gone over, when the grain is on the threshing-floors, because the households are gathered together and the size of the slave-force is seen and the toil of the work most strikes them; the abundance of grain warns them; the time of the year does not hinder — then, I say, when the rest of the praetors are running about, this man, by a kind of new fashion, was making for himself standing camp at a most beautiful place at Syracuse.

cum vero aestas summa esse coeperat, quod tempus omnes Siciliae semper praetores in itineribus consumere consuerunt, propterea quod tum putant obeundam esse maxime provinciam, cum in areis frumenta sunt, quod et familiae congregantur et magnitudo serviti perspicitur et labor operis maxime offendit, frumenti copia commonet, tempus anni non impedit: tum, inquam, cum concursant ceteri praetores, iste novo quodam genere imperator pulcherrimo Syracusarum loco stativa sibi castra faciebat.

For at the very entrance and mouth of the harbour, where first from the deep the bay turns from the shore to the city, he was setting up tents stretched with linen sails. Hither out of that praetorian house which had been King Hiero’s he so emigrated that no one through those days could see him outside that place. But to that very place there was approach for no one, except who could be either partner or minister of his lust. Hither all the women came with whom he had been familiar — of whom an incredible number was at Syracuse. Hither came men worthy of his friendship, worthy of that life and those banquets. Among such men and women, his now grown-up son was at large, that, even if nature drew him from a likeness to his father, custom and his father’s discipline might yet compel him to be like.

nam in ipso aditu atque ore portus, ubi primum ex alto sinus ab litore ad urbem inflectitur, tabernacula carbaseis intenta velis conlocabat. huc ex illa domo praetoria, quae regis Hieronis fuit, sic emigrabat ut eum per illos dies nemo extra illum locum videre posset. in eum autem ipsum locum aditus erat nemini, nisi qui aut socius aut minister libidinis esse posset. huc omnes mulieres, quibuscum iste consuerat, conveniebant, quarum incredibile est quanta multitudo fuerit Syracusis; huc homines digni istius amicitia, digni vita illa conviviisque veniebant. inter eius modi viros et mulieres adulta aetate filius versabatur, ut eum, etiamsi natura a parentis similitudine abriperet, consuetudo tamen ac disciplina patris similem esse cogeret.

Hither that Tertia, brought through guile and snares from the Rhodian flute-player, is said to have made the greatest tumults in his camp; when the wife of Cleomenes the Syracusan, a noble woman, took it ill, and likewise the wife of Aeschrio, born of an honourable family, that the daughter of Isidore the mime had come into their company. But this Hannibal, who reckoned that in his own camp the contest ought to be by virtue not by birth, so loved this Tertia that he carried her with him out of the province. And in those days, when he was wandering in a purple cloak and tunic to the ankles in women’s banquets, men were not offended, nor took it heavily that the magistrate was away from the forum, that justice was not given, that trials were not held; that the whole place of the shore resounded with the voices of women and the singing of music, that in the forum there was the highest silence of cases and of right — men did not bear it heavily; for it did not seem that justice was absent from the forum, nor trials, but force and cruelty and the bitter and unworthy plundering of the goods of good men.

huc Tertia illa perducta per dolum atque insidias ab Rhodio tibicine maximas in istius castris effecisse dicitur turbas, cum indigne pateretur uxor Cleomenis Syracusani, nobilis mulier, itemque uxor Aeschrionis, honesto loco nata, in conventum suum mimi Isidori filiam venisse. iste autem Hannibal, qui in suis castris virtute putaret oportere non genere certari, sic hanc Tertiam dilexit ut eam secum ex provincia deportaret. ac per eos dies, cum iste cum pallio purpureo talarique tunica versaretur in conviviis muliebribus, non offendebantur homines neque moleste ferebant abesse a foro magistratum, non ius dici, non iudicia fieri; locum illum litoris percrepare totum mulierum vocibus cantuque symphoniae, in foro silentium esse summum causarum atque iuris, non ferebant homines moleste; non enim ius abesse videbatur a foro neque iudicia, sed vis et crudelitas et bonorum acerba et indigna direptio.

Will you then defend that this is a general, Hortensius? Will you try to cover his thefts, rapines, greed, cruelty, arrogance, crime, audacity by the size of his deeds and by the praises of generalship? Here surely it is to be feared that, at the end of your defence, that old Antonian method and authority of speaking will be brought forth: that Verres should be roused, should be stripped from his breast, that the Roman people should look at the scars — of the marks of women’s bites, the traces of lust and wickedness. May the gods grant that you should dare to make mention of military service, of war!

hunc tu igitur imperatorem esse defendis, Hortensi? huius furta, rapinas, cupiditatem, crudelitatem, superbiam, scelus, audaciam rerum gestarum magnitudine atque imperatoriis laudibus tegere conaris? hic scilicet est metuendum ne ad exitum defensionis tuae vetus illa Antoniana dicendi ratio atque auctoritas proferatur, ne excitetur Verres, ne denudetur a pectore, ne cicatrices populus Romanus aspiciat, ex mulierum morsu vestigia libidinis atque nequitiae. di faciant ut rei militaris, ut belli mentionem facere audeas!

For all those old campaigns of his shall be learned, that you may understand of what kind he was not only in command but also in service. That first service shall be revived, when this man was wont to be carried away from the forum, not (as he himself proclaims) led there. The camps of the Placentine gambler shall be recalled, in which, although he was diligent, he was yet stricken from the rolls. Many losses of his in service shall be brought forth, which were dissolved and made up by him from the fruit of his youth.

cognoscentur enim omnia istius aera illa vetera, ut non solum in imperio verum etiam in stipendiis qualis fuerit intellegatis. renovabitur prima illa militia, cum iste e foro abduci, non, ut ipse praedicat, perduci solebat; aleatoris Placentini castra commemorabuntur, in quibus cum frequens fuisset tamen aere dirutus est; multa eius in stipendiis damna proferentur, quae ab isto aetatis fructu dissoluta et compensata sunt.

Now indeed, when in such patience of foulness he had grown hardened by another’s, not by his own, satiety, what kind of man he was, how many garrisons, how protected of modesty and chastity, he took by force and audacity — why does it concern me to say or to join with this man’s disgrace the dishonour of any other besides? I shall not, gentlemen. I shall pass over all the old. I shall set down only two recent ones with no man’s infamy, by which you can make a guess about all: the one which was so notorious and known to all, that no man so country-bred came up to Rome from any town in the consulship of Lucius Lucullus and Marcus Cotta on a bail-bond, but knew that all the rights of the city praetor were ruled by the nod and discretion of the little harlot Chelidon; the other, that, when he had set out in the cloak of war and pronounced his vows for his command and the common commonwealth, he was wont by night, for debauchery’s sake, to be carried in a litter into the city to a woman married to one, set out for all — against divine right, against the auspices, against all divine and human religious obligations!

iam vero, cum in eius modi patientia turpitudinis aliena non sua satietate obduruisset, qui vir fuerit, quot praesidia, quam munita pudoris et pudicitiae vi et audacia ceperit, quid me attinet dicere aut coniungere cum istius flagitio cuiusquam praeterea dedecus? non faciam, iudices; omnia vetera praetermittam, duo sola recentia sine cuiusquam infamia ponam, ex quibus coniecturam facere de omnibus possitis,—unum illud, quod ita fuit inlustre notumque omnibus ut nemo tam rusticanus homo L. Lucullo et M. Cotta consulibus Romam ex ullo municipio vadimoni causa venerit, quin sciret iura omnia praetoris urbani nutu atque arbitrio Chelidonis meretriculae gubernari, alterum quod, cum paludatus exisset votaque pro imperio suo communique re publica nuncupasset, noctu stupri causa lectica in urbem introferri solitus est ad mulierem nuptam uni, propositam omnibus, contra fas, contra auspicia, contra omnis divinas atque humanas religiones!

O immortal gods! What is the difference between the minds and the thoughts of men! So may my own will and the hope of the rest of my life be approved by your standing and that of the Roman people, as I have so received those magistracies which the Roman people has up to now entrusted to me, that I have reckoned myself bound by the religious obligation of all duties! So I was made quaestor that I thought that honour at that time was given me not only, but committed and entrusted; so I held the quaestorship in the province of Sicily that I thought all eyes were turned on me alone; that I reckoned that I and my quaestorship were occupied as if in some theatre of the world; that I always denied to all those things which seem pleasant, not only to those exceptional desires, but even to nature itself and to necessity.

O di immortales! quid interest inter mentes hominum et cogitationes! ita mihi meam voluntatem spemque reliquae vitae vestra populique Romani existimatio comprobet, ut ego, quos adhuc mihi magistratus populus Romanus mandavit, sic eos accepi ut me omnium officiorum obstringi religione arbitrarer! ita quaestor sum factus ut mihi illum honorem tum non solum datum, sed etiam creditum et commissum putarem; sic obtinui quaesturam in Sicilia provincia ut omnium oculos in me unum coniectos esse arbitrarer, ut me quaesturamque meam quasi in aliquo terrarum orbis theatro versari existimarem, ut semper omnia quae iucunda videntur esse, ea non modo his extraordinariis cupiditatibus, sed etiam ipsi naturae ac necessitati denegarem.

Now I am aedile-designate. I have a reckoning of what I have received from the Roman people: that I am to make the most sacred games to Ceres, Liber, and Libera with the highest care and ceremony; that I am to appease Mother Flora to the people and the plebs of Rome by the celebration of games; that I am to make the most ancient games which were first called Roman, with the highest dignity and religious sanctity, to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; that to me the procuration of the sacred buildings, that to me the guardianship of the whole city has been committed. For the labour and care of these things have been given those rewards: an earlier place of speaking my opinion in the senate, the bordered toga, the curule chair, the right of an image to be handed down to the memory of posterity.

nunc sum designatus aedilis; habeo rationem quid a populo Romano acceperim; mihi ludos sanctissimos maxima cum cura et caerimonia Cereri, libero, Liberaeque faciundos, mihi Floram matrem populo plebique Romanae ludorum celebritate placandam, mihi ludos antiquissimos, qui primi Romani appellati sunt, cum dignitate maxima et religione Iovi, Iunoni, Minervaeque esse faciundos, mihi sacrarum aedium procurationem, mihi totam urbem tuendam esse commissam; ob earum rerum laborem et sollicitudinem fructus illos datos, antiquiorem in senatu sententiae dicendae locum, togam praetextam, sellam curulem, ius imaginis ad memoriam posteritatemque prodendae.

Out of all these things, gentlemen — so may all the gods be propitious to me — although the honour of the people is most pleasant to me, yet I take by no means as much pleasure as concern and toil, that this very aedileship may seem not given to some candidate because it had to be, but, because so it was right, rightly bestowed and set in its place by the people’s judgement.

ex his ego omnibus rebus, iudices,—ita mihi omnis deos propitios velim,— etiamsi mihi iucundissimus est honos populi, tamen nequaquam capio tantum voluptatis quantum et sollicitudinis et laboris, ut haec ipsa aedilitas, non quia necesse fuerit, alicui candidato data, sed, quia sic oportuerit, recte conlocata et iudicio populi in loco esse posita videatur.

You, when you were proclaimed praetor in whatever way — for I leave aside and pass over what was done then — but when you were proclaimed, as I said, were you not roused by the very voice of the crier, who so many times in the centuries of the elders and the younger pronounced you affected with that honour, so that you should think this: that some part of the commonwealth was entrusted to you, that for one year you were to be away from a harlot’s home? When it had fallen to you by lot to administer justice, did you never consider how much business, how much burden you had? Nor did you take account of this — if perhaps you could rouse yourself — that the province, which it was hard to keep safe by singular wisdom and uprightness, had come to the highest stupidity and wickedness? So not only did you not wish to shut Chelidon out of your house in the praetorship, but you brought the whole praetorship into Chelidon’s house.

tu cum esses praetor renuntiatus quoquo modo,—mitto enim et praetereo quid tum sit actum,—sed cum esses renuntiatus, ut dixi, non ipsa praeconis voce excitatus es, qui te totiens seniorum iuniorumque centuriis illo honore adfici pronuntiavit, ut hoc putares, aliquam rei publicae partem tibi creditam, annum tibi illum unum domo carendum esse meretricis? cum tibi sorte obtigisset uti ius diceres, quantum negoti, quid oneris haberes, numquam cogitasti? neque illud rationis habuisti, si forte te expergefacere posses, eam provinciam, quam tueri singulari sapientia atque integritate difficile esset, ad summam stultitiam nequitiamque venisse? itaque non modo a domo tua Chelidonem in praetura excludere noluisti, sed in Cheliodonis domum praeturam totam detulisti.

The province followed; in which it never came into your mind that the fasces and axes and so much force of imperium and so great a dignity of all ornaments had not been given you to break, by the force and authority of those things, all the bars of modesty and duty; that you should hold all men’s goods as your plunder; that no man’s property could be safe, no man’s house closed, no man’s life hedged in, no man’s chastity guarded against your greed and audacity. In which you so conducted yourself that, when you are caught in all things, you flee to a runaway-slave war; out of which you now understand that no defence has arisen for you, but the greatest force of charges. Unless perhaps you bring forward the remains of the Italic war of runaways and that Tempsan misfortune, to which (when fortune lately had brought you most opportunely) you, if you had had any virtue or industry in you, were found to be the same that you had always been.

secuta provincia est; in qua numquam tibi venit in mentem non tibi idcirco fascis ac securis et tantam imperi vim tantamque ornamentorum omnium dignitatem datam ut earum rerum vi et auctoritate omnia repagula pudoris officique perfringeres, ut omnium bona praedam tuam duceres, ut nullius res tuta, nullius domus clausa, nullius vita saepta, nullius pudicitia munita contra tuam cupiditatem et audaciam posset esse; in qua tu te ita gessisti ut, omnibus cum teneare rebus, ad bellum fugitivorum confugias; ex quo iam intellegis non modo nullam tibi defensionem, sed maximam vim criminum exortam. Nisi forte Italici fugitivorum belli reliquias atque illud Tempsanum incommodum proferes, ad quod recens cum te peropportune fortuna attulisset, si quid in te virtutis aut industriae habuisses, idem qui semper fueras inventus es.

When the Valentini had come to you, and on their behalf an eloquent and noble man, Marcus Marius, was speaking, that you should take up the business; that, since the praetorian command and name was in your power, you should offer yourself as leader and chief for putting down that small band, you not only fled it, but at that very time, when you were on the shore, that Tertia of yours, whom you had brought with you, was in the sight of all. To the Valentini themselves, from so distinguished and noble a town, on so great matters, you gave answer when you were in a dark tunic and cloak. What do you suppose this man as he was setting out, what in the very province he did, who, when he was already departing from the province not to a triumph but to a trial, did not even flee that infamy which without any pleasure he was getting?

cum ad te Valentini venissent et pro iis homo disertus ac nobilis, M. Marius, loqueretur, ut negotium susciperes, ut, cum penes te praetorium imperium ac nomen esset, ad illam parvam manum exstinguendam ducem te principemque praeberes, non modo id refugisti, sed eo ipso tempore, cum esses in litore, Tertia illa tua, quam tu tecum deportaras, erat in omnium conspectu; ipsis autem Valentinis ex tam inlustri nobilique municipio tantis de rebus responsum dedisti, cum esses cum tunica pulla et pallio. quid hunc proficiscentem, quid in ipsa provincia fecisse existimatis qui, cum iam ex provincia non ad triumphum sed ad iudicium decederet, ne illam quidem infamiam fugerit quam sine ulla voluptate capiebat?

O divine murmuring of the throng of the senate in the temple of Bellona! You hold in memory, gentlemen, when it was growing dark and a little before there had been brought news of this Tempsan hurt, when no one was being found who could be sent to those places with imperium, and someone said that Verres was not far from Tempsa, how strongly all murmured together; how openly the chief men spoke against. And, convicted by these so many charges and testimonies, does he set out for himself any hope in the tablet of those by all of whom openly, his case unheard, he has been condemned by voice?

O divina senatus frequentis in aede Bellonae admurmuratio! memoria tenetis, iudices, cum advesperasceret et paulo ante esset de hoc Tempsano incommodo nuntiatum, cum inveniretur nemo qui in illa loca cum imperio mitteretur, dixisset que quidam Verrem esse non longe a Tempsa, quam valde universi admurmuraverint, quam palam principes dixerint contra. et his tot criminibus testimoniisque convictus in eorum tabella spem sibi aliquam proponit, quorum omnium palam causa incognita voce damnatus est?

Be it so. Out of the war of runaways or the suspicion of war he attained no praise, since neither was such a war nor any peril of war in Sicily; nor was it provided by him that there should be none. But indeed against the war of brigands he had a fleet equipped, and singular diligence in it, and so the province was famously defended by him. Of the war of brigands, of the Sicilian fleet, gentlemen, I shall so speak that I shall affirm this in advance: that in this one kind there are all this man’s greatest faults — of greed, of treason, of madness, of lust, of cruelty. While I briefly set these out, please attend, as you have done up to now, diligently.

esto; nihil ex fugitivorum bello aut suspicione belli laudis adeptus est, quod neque bellum eius modi neque belli periculum fuit in Sicilia, neque ab isto provisum est ne quod esset; at vero contra bellum praedonum classem habuit ornatam diligentiamque in eo singularem, itaque ab isto praeclare defensa provincia est. sic de bello praedonum, sic de classe Siciliensi, iudices, dicam ut hoc iam ante confirmem, in hoc uno genere omnis inesse culpas istius maximas avaritiae, maiestatis, dementiae, libidinis, crudelitatis. haec dum breviter expono, quaeso, ut fecistis adhuc, diligenter attendite.

I say first that the naval matter was so administered, not that the province should be defended, but that under the name of fleet money should be sought. When the custom of the previous praetors had been such that ships were demanded from the cities, and a fixed number of sailors and soldiers, on the largest and most well-off Mamertine state you commanded none of these things. For this thing what money the Mamertines secretly gave you, afterwards, if it shall seem good, we shall ask out of their own letters and witnesses.

rem navalem primum ita dico esse administratam, non uti provincia defenderetur, sed uti classis nomine pecunia quaereretur. superiorum praetorum consuetudo cum haec fuisset, ut naves civitatibus certusque numerus nautarum militumque imperaretur, maximae et locupletissimae civitati Mamertinae nihil horum imperavisti. ob hanc rem quid tibi Mamertini clam pecuniae dederint, post, si videbitur, ex ipsorum litteris testibusque quaeremus.

But I say that a cargo-ship, the largest, like a trireme, most beautiful and most adorned, was openly built at public expense in your name, publicly, with all Sicily knowing it, through the magistrate and the senate of the Mamertines, and given as a gift to you. This ship, laden with Sicilian plunder (although she herself too was out of the plunder), at the same time when he was leaving, was brought in to Velia with very many things — and those which this man would not send to Rome with the rest of his thefts, because they were most famous and pleased him most. That ship I myself lately saw at Velia and many others have seen, most beautiful and most adorned, gentlemen: which seemed indeed to all who had seen her now to look out for her master’s exile and to scout out his flight.

navem vero cybaeam, maximam triremis instar, pulcherrimam atque ornatissimam cybaeam, palam aedificatam sumptu publico tuo nomine, publice, sciente tota Sicilia, per magistratum senatumque Mamertinum tibi datam donatamque esse dico. haec navis onusta praeda Siciliensi, cum ipsa quoque esset ex praeda, simul cum ipse decederet, adpulsa Veliam est cum plurimis rebus, et iis quas iste Romam mittere cum ceteris furtis noluit, quod erant clarissimae maximeque eum delectabant. eam navem nuper egomet vidi Veliae multique alii viderunt, pulcherrimam atque ornatissimam, iudices: quae quidem omnibus qui eam aspexerant prospectare iam exsilium atque explorare fugam domini videbatur.

What will you answer me in this place? Unless perhaps that which, although it can in no way be proved, yet must be said in a trial for extortion: that the ship was built out of your own money. Dare to say this much at least, which is necessary. Do not fear, Hortensius, lest I ask by what right it was lawful for a senator to build a ship; those laws are old and dead (as you are wont to say) which forbid it. There was once that commonwealth, there was that strictness in trials, that the prosecutor reckoned this thing must be thrown back among the great charges. For what need to you of a ship? Who, if you are setting out anywhere on public business, are furnished vessels for protection and conveyance at public expense; in private, however, you can neither set out anywhere nor send for things from across the sea out of those places in which you may have nothing.

quid mihi hoc loco respondebis? nisi forte id quod, tametsi probari nullo modo potest, tamen dici quidem in iudicio de pecuniis repetundis necesse est, de tua pecunia aedificatam esse navem. aude hoc saltem dicere quod necesse est; noli metuere, Hortensi, ne quaeram qui licuerit aedificare navem senatori; antiquae sunt istae leges et mortuae, quem ad modum tu soles dicere, quae vetant. fuit ista res publica quondam, fuit ista severitas in iudiciis, ut istam rem accusator in magnis criminibus obiciendam putaret. quid enim tibi navi? qui si quo publice proficisceris, praesidi et vecturae causa sumptu publico navigia praebentur; privatim autem nec proficisci quoquam potes nec arcessere res transmarinas ex iis locis in quibus te habere nihil licet.

Then why have you procured anything against the laws? This charge would prevail in that old strictness and dignity of the commonwealth. Now I do not even charge you with this; nor even with that common reproach do I reproach you. Did you yourself never think this would be foul to you, never charged, never odious: that in a most frequented place a cargo-ship should be openly built for you in the province which you were holding with imperium? What did you think those who saw said, what did those who heard reckon? That you would bring that ship empty into Italy? That when you had come to Rome, you would set up as a shipper? Not even this could anyone suspect: that you had a maritime estate in Italy and were procuring a cargo-ship for carrying off harvests. Such was the talk of all about you that you wished to be openly: that you were procuring that ship that should carry plunder out of Sicily, and should make the journey to those thefts which you had left.

deinde cur quicquam contra leges parasti? valeret hoc crimen in illa vetere severitate ac dignitate rei publicae; nunc non modo te hoc crimine non arguo, sed ne illa quidem communi vituperatione reprehendo: tu tibi hoc numquam turpe, numquam criminosum, numquam invidiosum fore putasti, celeberrimo loco palam tibi aedificari onerariam navem in provincia quam tu cum imperio obtinebas? quid eos loqui qui videbant, quid existimare eos qui audiebant arbitrabare? inanem te navem esse illam in Italiam adducturum? naviculariam, cum Romam venisses, esse facturum? ne illud quidem quisquam poterat suspicari, te in Italia maritimum habere fundum et ad fructus deportandos onerariam navem comparare. eius modi voluisti de te sermonem esse omnium palam ut loquerentur te illam navem parare quae praedam ex Sicilia deportaret, et ad ea furta quae reliquisses commearet.

But all these things, if you teach that the ship was built from your own money, I let go and grant. But this, most senseless of men, do you not understand was taken away in the previous hearing by these very Mamertines, your praisers? For Heius, the chief of the city, the chief of the embassy which was sent for your praise, said that the ship was made for you by the public works of the Mamertines, and that a Mamertine senator had been in public charge of its building. The remaining thing is the timber. This, on the Reginians, as they themselves say — although you cannot deny it — you publicly commanded, because the Mamertines have no timber. If both that out of which the ship is made, and those who make it, were furnished to you by your command and not at a price, where then is hidden what you say was spent from your own money? But the Mamertines have nothing in their records.

verum haec omnia, si doces navem de tua pecunia aedificatam, remitto atque concedo. sed hoc, homo amentissime, non intellegis priore actione ab ipsis istis Mamertinis, tuis laudatoribus, esse sublatum? nam dixit Heius, princeps civitatis, princeps istius legationis quae ad tuam laudationem missa est, navem tibi operis publicis Mamertinorum esse factam, eique faciendae senatorem Mamertinum publice praefuisse. reliqua est materies. hanc Reginis, ut ipsi dicunt— tametsi tu negare non potes—publice, quod Mamertini materiem non habent, imperavisti. si et ex quo fit navis, et qui faciunt, imperio tibi tuo non pretio praesto fuerunt, ubi tandem istud latet quod tu de tua pecunia dicis impensum? at Mamertini in tabulis nihil habent.

First, I see it could happen that they should give nothing from their treasury. For even the Capitoline, just as was done by our ancestors, with workmen and labour publicly ordered, could be built up and finished free. Next — which I see and which I shall show, when I shall produce them, from their own letters — that very many sums of money were entered as paid out for false and empty contracts of works. Now this is least wonderful: that the Mamertines, from whom they had received the greatest benefit, whom they knew was more friendly to themselves than to the Roman people, had spared his life by their own writings. But if it is a proof that the Mamertines did not give you money because they have not entered it, let it be a proof to you that the ship stood you free, because what you bought or what you let out you cannot show in writing.

primum video potuisse fieri ut ex aerario nihil darent; etenim vel Capitolium, sicut apud maiores nostros factum est, publice coactis fabris operisque imperatis gratiis exaedificari atque effici potuit; deinde—id quod perspicio et quod ostendam, cum ipsos produxero, ipsorum ex litteris—multas pecunias isti erogatas in operum locationes falsas atque inanis esse perscriptas. iam illud minime mirum est, Mamertinos a quo summum beneficium acceperant, quem sibi amiciorem quam populo Romano esse cognoverant, eius capiti litteris suis pepercisse. sed si argumento est Mamertinos tibi pecuniam non dedisse, quia scriptum non habent, sit argumento tibi gratiis stare navem, quia, quid emeris aut quid locaris, scriptum proferre non potes.

But you did not, you say, command a ship of the Mamertines because they are in alliance. May the gods favour us! We have a man brought up in the hands of the fetial priests, the one above the rest sacred and diligent in the religious bonds of treaties. Let all the praetors who were before you be handed over to the Mamertines, because they had commanded a ship of them against the agreement of the treaty. But yet, you sacred and religious man, why did you command a ship of the Tauromenitans likewise in alliance? Or will you make this credible, that in the equal case of two peoples, without a price, the right was various and the condition unequal?

at enim idcirco navem Mamertinis non imperasti, quod sunt foederati. di adprobent! habemus hominem in fetialium manibus educatum, unum praeter ceteros in publicis religionibus foederum sanctum ac diligentem; omnes qui ante te fuerunt praetores dedantur Mamertinis, quod iis navem contra pactionem foederis imperarint. sed tamen tu, sancte homo ac religiose, cur Tauromenitanis item foederatis navem imperasti? an hoc probabis, in aequa causa populorum sine pretio varium ius et disparem condicionem fuisse?

What if I show that these two treaties of two peoples, gentlemen, are such that for the Tauromenitans it has been by name provided and excepted in the treaty that they need not give a ship; that for the Mamertines in the very treaty it has been ordained and laid down that it is necessary that they give a ship; that this man, however, against the treaty has both commanded the Tauromenitans and remitted the Mamertines — could it be in doubt to anyone that under Verres as praetor a cargo-ship aided the Mamertines more than a treaty did the Tauromenitans? Let the treaties be read out. By that benefit of yours, then, as you yourself proclaim it, by a price and wage — as the matter shows — you have lessened the majesty of the commonwealth, you have lessened the helps of the Roman people, you have lessened the resources prepared by the virtue and wisdom of our ancestors, you have taken away the right of empire, the condition of the allies, the memory of the treaty. Those who out of the treaty itself ought to send a ship even to Ocean, if we should command it, armed and equipped at their own cost and peril — these men, that they should not sail in the strait before their own roofs and homes, that they should not defend their own walls and harbours, ransomed from you by a price the right of the treaty and the condition of the imperium.

quid? si eius modi esse haec duo foedera duorum so populorum, iudices, doceo, ut Tauromenitanis nominatim cautum et exceptum sit foedere ne navem dare debeant, Mamertinis in ipso foedere sanctum atque praescriptum sit ut navem dare necesse sit, istum autem contra foedus et Tauromenitanis imperasse et Mamertinis remisisse, num cui dubium poterit esse quin Verre praetore plus Mamertinis cybaea quam Tauromenitanis foedus opitulatum sit? recitentur foedera. isto igitur tuo, quem ad modum ipse praedicas, beneficio, ut res indicat, pretio atque mercede minuisti maiestatem rei publicae, minuisti auxilia populi Romani, minuisti copias maiorum virtute ac sapientia comparatas, sustulisti ius imperi, condicionem sociorum, memoriam foederis: qui ex foedere ipso navem vel usque ad Oceanum, si imperassemus, sumptu periculoque suo armatam atque ornatam mittere debuerunt, hi ne in freto ante sua tecta et domos navigarent, ne sua moenia portusque defenderent, pretio abs te ius foederis et imperi condicionem redemerunt.

What do you suppose the Mamertines wished to spend, in making this treaty, of toil, work, money, that this bireme should not be added in, if they could in any way obtain that from our ancestors? For when this duty so heavy was being laid on the city, there was somehow in that treaty of partnership a kind of mark of slavery. Which thing, then, with their services fresh, the matter still whole, no difficulties of the Roman people, they could not get from our ancestors by treaty: that thing now, with no new service of theirs, so many years afterwards — a right of our imperium yearly used and always kept — in the highest difficulty of ships, from Gaius Verres they got by a price. And not only this they got, that they should not give a ship. What sailor, what soldier who should be in the fleet or on guard did the Mamertines under you as praetor for three years give?

quid censetis in hoc foedere faciendo voluisse Mamertinos impendere laboris, operae, pecuniae ne haec biremis adscriberetur, si id ullo modo possent a nostris maioribus impetrare? nam cum hoc munus imponebatur tam grave civitati, inerat nescio quo modo in illo foedere societatis quasi quaedam nota servitutis. quod tum, recentibus suis officiis, integra re, nullis populi Romani difficultatibus, a maioribus nostris foedere adsequi non potuerunt, id nunc, nullo novo officio suo, tot annis post,—iure imperi nostri quotannis usurpatum ac semper retentum,—summa in difficultate navium, a C. Verre pretio adsecuti sunt, ac non hoc solum adsecuti, ne navem darent: ecquem nautam, ecquem militem, qui aut in classe aut in praesidio esset, te praetore per triennium Mamertini dederunt?

Finally, when by the senate’s decree and likewise by the Terentian-Cassian law grain ought to be bought equally from all the cities of Sicily, that duty too, light and common, you remitted the Mamertines. You will say that the Mamertines did not owe grain. How not owe? In the sense that they should not sell? For this kind of grain was not of the kind that was demanded, but of that which was bought. By you then as author and interpreter the Mamertines owed not even market and supply to help the Roman people.

denique cum ex senatus consulto itemque ex lege Terentia et Cassia frumentum aequabiliter emi ab omnibus Siciliae civitatibus oporteret, id quoque munus leve atque commune Mamertinis remisisti. dices frumentum Mamertinos non debere. quo modo non debere? an ut ne venderent? non enim erat hoc genus frumenti ex eo genere quod exigeretur, sed ex eo quod emeretur. te igitur auctore et interprete ne foro quidem et commeatu Mamertini iuvare populum Romanum debuerunt.

What city, then, was there which owed it? Those who plough public lands — it is fixed what they owe by the censorial law. Why did you command of these anything besides out of another kind? What? Do the tithe-payers owe anything beyond the single tithes by the Hieronic law? Why did you also lay down for these how much from this kind of bought grain they should give? What of the immune? These surely owe nothing. But on these you not only commanded; but, that they should give more than they could, those 60,000 modii which you had remitted the Mamertines, you added. Nor do I say this — that on the rest it was not rightly commanded; but on the Mamertines, who were in the same case, and on whom all the previous praetors had likewise as on the rest commanded and had paid out money by the senate’s decree and the law: on these, I say, it was not rightly remitted. And, that he might fix this benefit (as it is said) with a beam-nail, with a council he hears the case of the Mamertines, and from the council’s opinion he proclaims that he is not commanding grain of the Mamertines.

quae tandem civitas fuit quae deberet? qui publicos agros arant, certum est quid e lege censoria debeant: cur his quicquam praeterea ex alio genere imperavisti? quid? decumani num quid praeter singulas decumas ex lege Hieronica debent? cur his quoque statuisti quantum ex hoc genere frumenti empti darent? quid immunes? hi certe nihil debent. at eis non modo imperasti, verum etiam, quo plus darent quam poterant, haec sexagena milia modium, quae Mamertinis remiseras, addidisti. neque hoc dico, ceteris non recte imperatum, sed Mamertinis, qui erant in eadem causa, et quibus superiores omnes item ut ceteris imperarant pecuniamque ex senatus consulto et ex lege dissolverant, his dico non recte remissum. et ut hoc beneficium, quem ad modum dicitur, trabali clavo figeret, cum consilio causam Mamertinorum cognoscit et de consili sententia Mamertinis se frumentum non imperare pronuntiat.

Hear the decree of the hireling praetor from his own commentary, and learn what gravity in writing, what authority in establishing right there is. Read. Commentary. From the council’s opinion, he says, he gladly does it, and so he writes. What if you had not used this word "gladly"? We should have thought, of course, that you were making gain unwilling. And "from the council’s opinion"! A famous council was read, gentlemen — did you hear it? Did the council of a praetor seem to you to be read out, when you heard the names, or the partnership and retinue of a most dishonest brigand?

audite decretum mercennarii praetoris ex ipsius commentario, et cognoscite quanta in scribendo gravitas, quanta in constituendo iure sit auctoritas. recita. COMMENTARIVS. de consili sententia libenter ait se facere itaque perscribit. quid, si hoc verbo non esses usus ’libenter’? nos videlicet invitum te quaestum facere putaremus. ac ’de consili sententia’! praeclarum recitari consilium, iudices, audistis; utrum vobis consilium tandem praetoris recitari videbatur, cum audiebatis nomina, an praedonis improbissimi societas atque comitatus?

Lo, the interpreters of treaties, the authors of partnership, of agreement, of religion! Never in Sicily was grain bought publicly without being commanded of the Mamertines in proportion, before this man devised this picked and famous council, that he might receive coins from these and be like himself. So the authority of his decree had as much weight as it ought to have had of that man who, from those from whom he ought to have bought grain, had sold the decree. So at once Lucius Metellus, when he had succeeded him, by the institution and writings of Gaius Sacerdos and Sextus Peducaeus commanded grain of the Mamertines.

en foederum interpretes, societatis, pactionis, religionis auctores! numquam in Sicilia frumentum publice est emptum quin Mamertinis pro portione imperaretur, antequam hoc delectum praeclarumque consilium iste dedit, ut ab his nummos acciperet ac sui similis esset. itaque tantum valuit istius decreti auctoritas quantum debuit eius hominis qui, a quibus frumentum emere debuisset, iis decretum vendidisset. nam statim L. Metellus ut isti successit, ex C. Sacerdotis et ex Sex. Peducaei instituto ac litteris frumentum Mamertinis imperavit.

Then those men understood that what they had bought from a bad author they could not longer hold. Come, you, who wished to seem so religious an interpreter of treaties, why did you command grain of the Tauromenitans, why of the Netini? Both of which states are in alliance. And the Netini did not fail themselves; and as soon as you had pronounced that you gladly remitted the Mamertines, they came to you and showed that their cause of treaty was the same. You could not in the same case decree otherwise. You proclaim that the Netini ought not to give grain. And yet you exact it from them. Give me the letters of that same praetor, both of decreed matters and of grain commanded. Letters of decreed matters. What rather, gentlemen, can we suspect in this great and so foul inconsistency than what is necessary: either that the money was demanded by him from the Netini and not given, or that this was being done so that the Mamertines might understand they had bestowed so many prizes and gifts well with him, when others did not get the same right out of the same case?

tum illi intellexerunt se id quod a malo auctore emissent diutius obtinere non posse. age porro, tu, qui tam religiosum existimari te voluisti interpretem foederum, cur Tauromenitanis frumentum, cur Netinis imperasti? quarum civitatum utraque foederata est. ac Netini quidem sibi non defuerunt ac, simul pronuntiasti libenter te Mamertinis remittere, te adierunt et eandem suam causam foederis esse docuerunt. tu aliter decernere eadem in causa non potuisti; pronuntias Netinos frumentum dare non debere et ab his tamen exigis. cedo mihi eiusdem praetoris litteras et rerum decretarum et frumenti imperati. LITTERAE RERVM DECRETARVM. Quid potius in hac tanta et tam turpi inconstantia suspicari possumus, iudices, quam id quod necesse est, aut isti a Netinis pecuniam cum posceret non datam, aut id esse actum ut intellegerent Mamertini bene se apud istum tam multa pretia ac munera conlocasse, cum idem alii iuris ex eadem causa non obtinerent?

And here will he yet dare to make mention of the Mamertine praise! In which how many wounds there are, who of you, gentlemen, does not understand? For first in trials, who cannot give ten praisers, it is more honourable for him to give none than not to fill out that lawful, customary number. So many cities are there in Sicily over which you held command for three years: the rest accuse; a few small ones, by force and fear pressed down, are silent; one praises. What is this save to understand what advantage true praise has, but yet so to have ruled the province that this advantage must necessarily be lacking?

hic mihi etiam audebit mentionem facere Mamertinae laudationis! in qua quam multa sint vulnera quis est vestrum, iudices, quin intellegat? primum enim in iudiciis qui decem laudatores dare non potest, honestius est ei nullum dare quam illum quasi legitimum numerum consuetudinis non explere. tot in Sicilia civitates sunt quibus tu per triennium praefuisti: arguunt ceterae, paucae et parvae vi et metu repressae silent, una laudat. hoc quid est nisi intellegere quid habeat utilitatis vera laudatio, sed tamen ita provinciae praefuisse ut hac utilitate necessario sit carendum?

Next — which I have said before in another place — what at last is that praise, of which praise the envoys, the chiefs, said both that a ship had been built for you publicly and that they themselves had been despoiled and plundered by you privately? Finally, what else are these doing, when alone of Sicily they praise you, save that they are witnesses to us that you bestowed all things on them which you took from our commonwealth? What colony in Italy is of such good right, what town so immune, has used in these years so commodious an exemption from all things as the Mamertine state? For three years alone they did not give what they owed by treaty. Alone under you as praetor they were immune from all things; alone in your imperium they lived on this condition: that they should give nothing to the Roman people, that they should refuse nothing to Verres.

deinde, quod alio loco antea dixi, quae est ista tandem laudatio, cuius laudationis legati et principes et publice tibi navem aedificatam et privatim se ipsos abs te spoliatos expilatosque esse dixerunt? postremo quid aliud isti faciunt, cum te soli ex Sicilia laudant, nisi testimonio nobis sunt omnia te sibi esse largitum quae tu de re publica nostra detraxeris? quae colonia est in Italia tam bono iure, quod tam immune municipium, quod per hosce annos tam commoda vacatione omnium rerum sit usum quam Mamertina civitas? per triennium soli ex foedere quod debuerunt non dederunt, soli isto praetore omnium rerum immunes fuerunt, soli in istius imperio ea condicione vixerunt ut populo Romano nihil darent, Verri nihil negarent.

But that I may return to the fleet, whence my speech has gone aside: you have received a ship from the Mamertines against the laws, you have remitted them against the treaties. So in one city you have twice been dishonest, since you have both remitted what you ought not, and received what was not lawful. You ought to have demanded a ship which would sail against brigands, not which sailed with plunder; which would defend the province from being despoiled, not which would carry the spoils of the province. The Mamertines provided you with both a city to which you might bring your thefts from every quarter, and a ship in which you might export them. That town was your receptacle for the plunder; those men the witnesses and watchmen of your thefts; those men prepared for you both a place for thefts and a vehicle of thefts. So not even then, when by your greed and wickedness you lost the fleet, did you dare to command a ship of the Mamertines. At which time, in such great want of ships and in such great calamity of the province, even if they had to be asked as suppliants, yet it would have been obtained from them. For your power of commanding and your attempt of asking was held back by that distinguished bireme not given back to the Roman people, but the cargo-ship given to the praetor. That was the wage of the imperium, of help, of right, of custom, of the treaty.

verum ut ad classem, quo ex loco sum digressus, revertar, accepisti a Mamertinis navem contra leges, remisisti contra foedera. ita in una civitate bis improbus fuisti, cum et remisisti quod non oportebat, et accepisti quod non licebat. exigere te oportuit navem quae contra praedones, non quae cum praeda navigaret, quae defenderet ne provincia spoliaretur, non quae provinciae spolia portaret. Mamertini tibi et urbem quo furta undique deportares, et navem in qua exportares praebuerunt; illud tibi oppidum receptaculum praedae fuit, illi homines testes custodesque furtorum, illi tibi et locum furtis et furtorum vehiculum comparaverunt. itaque ne tum quidem cum classem avaritia ac nequitia tua perdidisti Mamertinis navem imperare ausus es; quo tempore in tanta inopia navium tantaque calamitate provinciae, etiamsi precario essent rogandi, tamen ab iis impetraretur. reprimebat enim tibi et imperandi vim et rogandi conatum praeclara illa non populo Romano reddita biremis, sed praetori donata cybaea. ea fuit merces imperi, auxili, iuris, consuetudinis, foederis.

You have the firm help of one city lost and sold for a price. Learn now a new method of plundering, devised first by him. The whole expense for the fleet — in grain, in pay, and in the rest of things — each city was always wont to give to its own captain. He neither dared to risk being accused by his sailors, and had to render accounts to his fellow citizens, and was occupied in that whole business not only by his own labour but also at his own peril. This was, as I say, always done, and not only in Sicily but in all provinces, and even in the pay and expense of allies and Latins, at the time when we were wont to use their helps. Verres, since the imperium was established, was the first to command that all that money be counted out to him from the cities, that he himself should handle that money whom he himself had set in charge.

habetis unius civitatis firmum auxilium amissum ac venditum pretio: cognoscite nunc novam praedandi rationem ab hoc primum excogitatam. sumptum omnem in classem frumento stipendio ceterisque rebus suo quaeque nauarcho civitas semper dare solebat. is neque ut accusaretur a nautis committere audebat, et civibus suis rationes referre debebat, et in illo omni negotio non modo labore sed etiam periculo suo versabatur. erat hoc, ut dico, factitatum semper, nec solum in Sicilia sed in omnibus provinciis, etiam in sociorum et Latinorum stipendio ac sumptu, tum cum illorum auxiliis uti solebamus: Verres post imperium constitutum primus imperavit ut ea pecunia omnis a civitatibus sibi adnumeraretur, ut is eam pecuniam tractaret quem ipse praefecisset.

Who can doubt for what reason you both first changed the old custom of all, and neglected so great an advantage of having money handled by others, and undertook so great a difficulty with the charge, so great a trouble with the suspicion? Then other gains are devised: see how many out of the one naval kind! To take money from the cities that they should not give sailors, to discharge the sailors at a fixed price, to take all the pay of the discharged as gain, not to give to the rest what was owed — learn all these from the testimonies of the cities.

cui potest esse dubium quam ob rem et omnium consuetudinem veterem primus immutaris, et tantam utilitatem per alios tractandae pecuniae neglexeris, et tantam difficultatem cum crimine, molestiam cum suspicione susceperis? deinde alii quaestus instituuntur, ex uno genere navali videte quam multi! accipere a civitatibus pecuniam ne nautas darent, pretio certo missos facere nautas, missorum omne stipendium lucrari, reliquis quod deberet non dare,—haec omnia ex civitatum testimoniis cognoscite.

Read. Testimonies of the cities. This man, this shamelessness, gentlemen, this audacity! To distribute to the cities sums of money in proportion to the number of soldiers, to fix a fixed price — six hundred sesterces — of discharging sailors! Those who had given it had taken away leave for the whole summer; he kept as gain whatever he had received in the name of that sailor for pay and grain. So a double gain was being made out of one discharge. And these things this most senseless man, in such great onset of brigands and such great peril of the province, was so doing openly that the brigands themselves knew it and the whole province was witness.

recita. TESTIMONIA CIVITATVM. Huncine hominem, hancine impudentiam, iudices, hanc audaciam! civitatibus pro numero militum pecuniarum summas discribere, certum pretium, sescenos nummos, nautarum missionis constituere! quos qui dederat commeatum totius aestatis abstulerat, iste, quod eius nautae nomine pro stipendio frumentoque acceperat, lucrabatur. ita quaestus duplex unius missionis fiebat. atque haec homo amentissimus in tanto praedonum impetu tantoque periculo provinciae sic palam faciebat ut et ipsi praedones scirent et tota provincia testis esset.

When on account of this man’s greed there was in Sicily a fleet in name — in fact indeed empty ships, which would bring plunder to the praetor and not fear to the brigands — yet, when Publius Caesetius and Publius Tadius were sailing with their ten ships half-full, a certain pirate ship laden with plunder they did not capture, but led off, plainly captured and weighed down by its own load. That ship was full of the most beautiful young men, full of silver wrought and stamped, with much bedclothing. This one ship was not captured by our fleet but found by Megaris, which place is not far from Syracuse. When this was reported to him, although he was lying drunk on the shore with the little women, he yet roused himself and at once sent several guards to his quaestor and his legate, that everything should be brought to him whole as soon as possible.

cum propter istius hanc avaritiam nomine classis esset in Sicilia, re quidem vera naves inanes, quae praedam praetori non quae praedonibus metum adferrent, tamen, cum P. Caesetius et P. Tadius decem navibus suis semiplenis navigarent, navem quandam piratarum praeda refertam non ceperunt, sed abduxerunt onere suo plane captam atque depressam. erat ea navis plena iuventutis formosissimae, plena argenti facti atque signati, multa cum stragula veste. haec una navis a classe nostra non capta est, sed inventa ad Megaridem, qui locus est non longe a Syracusis. quod ubi isti nuntiatum est, tametsi in acta cum mulierculis iacebat ebrius, erexit se tamen et statim quaestori legatoque suo custodes misit compluris, ut omnia sibi integra quam primum exhiberentur.

The ship is brought in to Syracuse. Punishment is awaited by all. He, as if plunder had been brought to him, not pirates captured — those who were old and ugly, them he reckoned in the number of enemies. Those who had any beauty of age and skill, he led off all. Some he distributed to the clerks, his son, and the staff. Six musicians he sent as a gift to a friend of his at Rome. That whole night was spent in emptying out the ship. The chief pirate himself — on whom punishment ought to have been taken — nobody saw. Today all hold this — you ought by guess to attain how much of it is true — that this man secretly took money from the pirates for that chief pirate.

adpellitur navis Syracusas; exspectatur ab omnibus supplicium. iste quasi praeda sibi advecta, non praedonibus captis, si qui senes ac deformes erant, eos in hostium numero ducit; qui aliquid formae aetatis artificique habebant, abducit omnis, non nullos scribis filio cohortique distribuit, symphoniacos homines sex cuidam amico suo Romam muneri misit. Nox illa tota in exinaniunda nave consumitur. archipiratam ipsum videt nemo, de quo supplicium sumi oportuit. hodie omnes sic habent —quid eius sit vos coniectura adsequi debetis—istum clam a piratis ob hunc archipiratam pecuniam accepisse.

"It is a guess." No one can be a good judge who is not moved by sure suspicion. You know the man; you hold the custom of all — how willingly he who has captured a leader of brigands or enemies suffers him to be in the open before the eyes of all. I saw at Syracuse, gentlemen, in such a great gathering, no man who said he had seen the chief pirate captured, when all (as is the custom, as is wont to happen) were running together, asking, longing to see. What happened that this man was so greatly hidden that even by chance no one could look on him? Sea-faring men at Syracuse, who had often heard of the name of that leader, often had feared him, when they wished to feed their eyes and to glut their minds with his torture and punishment, were given the power of seeing by no one.

’ coniectura est.’ iudex esse bonus nemo potest qui suspicione certa non movetur. hominem nostis, consuetudinem omnium tenetis,—qui ducem praedonum aut hostium ceperit, quam libenter eum palam ante oculos omnium esse patiatur. hominem in tanto conventu Syracusis vidi neminem, iudices, qui archipiratam captum sese vidisse diceret, cum omnes, ut mos est, ut solet fieri, concurrerent, quaererent, videre cuperent. quid accidit cur tanto opere iste homo occultaretur ut eum ne casu quidem quisquam aspicere posset? homines maritimi Syracusis, qui saepe istius ducis nomen audissent, saepe timuissent, cum eius cruciatu atque supplicio pascere oculos animumque exsaturare vellent, potestas aspiciendi nemini facta est.

One man captured more leaders of pirates alive than all before him: Publius Servilius. Was anyone ever therefore deprived of this fruit, that it should not be allowed to see the captured pirate? But on the contrary, wherever he made his journey, he gave this most pleasant spectacle to all of bound and captured enemies. So a gathering was made round him from every quarter, that not only out of those towns through which they were being led, but even out of the neighbouring ones, men came together to look. But the triumph itself — for what reason was it of all triumphs the most welcome to the Roman people and the most pleasant? Because nothing is sweeter than victory; nothing, however, is a surer witness of victory than to see those whom you have often feared led bound to punishment.

Vnus pluris praedonum duces vivos cepit P. Servilius quam omnes antea. Ecquando igitur isto fructu quisquam caruit, ut videre piratam captum non liceret? at contra, quacumque iter fecit, hoc iucundissimum spectaculum omnibus vinctorum captorumque hostium praebebat; itaque ei concursus fiebat undique ut non modo ex iis oppidis qua ducebantur sed etiam ex finitimis visendi causa convenirent. ipse autem triumphus quam ob rem omnium triumphorum gratissimus populo Romano fuit et iucundissimus? quia nihil est victoria dulcius, nullum est autem testimonium victoriae certius quam, quos saepe metueris, eos te vinctos ad supplicium duci videre.

Why did you not do this? Why was that pirate of yours so hidden as if it were unspeakable for him to be seen? Why did you not exact punishment? For what cause did you keep the man? Do you know any captured chief pirate before in Sicily who was not struck with the axe? Give me one author of your deed; bring forth one example. You were keeping the chief pirate alive: for what? For a triumph, I trust, that you might lead him before your chariot. Nor was anything left save that, with the most beautiful fleet of the Roman people lost and the province torn to pieces, a naval triumph should be decreed for you.

hoc tu quam ob rem non fecisti? quam ob rem ita pirata iste occultatus est quasi eum aspici nefas esset? quam ob rem supplicium non sumpsisti? quam ob causam hominem reservasti? ecquem scis in Sicilia antea captum archipiratam qui non securi percussus sit? Vnum cedo auctorem tui facti, unius profer exemplum. vivum tu archipiratam servabas: quo? per triumphum, credo, quem ante currum tuum duceres; neque enim quicquam erat reliquum nisi uti classe populi Romani pulcherrima amissa provinciaque lacerata triumphus tibi navalis decerneretur.

Come further: it pleased you that the leader of the brigands should be kept under guard by a new fashion rather than struck with the axe by the example of all. What guards are these? Among what men, in what manner was he kept? You have all heard of the Syracusan stone-quarries; most of you know them. The work is huge, magnificent, of kings and tyrants. The whole is from rock sunk to a wonderful depth and cut deeply by the work of many. Nothing so closed for exit, nothing so hedged in on every side, nothing so safe for guarding can either be made or thought of. Into these stone-quarries, if any are to be guarded publicly, men are commanded to be brought even from the rest of the towns of Sicily.

age porro, custodiri ducem praedonum novo more quam securi feriri omnium exemplo magis placuit. quae sunt istae custodiae? apud quos homines, quem ad modum est adservatus? lautumias Syracusanas omnes audistis, plerique nostis. opus est ingens, magnificum, regum ac tyrannorum; totum est e saxo in mirandam altitudinem depresso et multorum operis penitus exciso; nihil tam clausum ad exitum, nihil tam saeptum undique, nihil tam tutum ad custodiam nec fieri nec cogitari potest. in has lautumias, si qui publice custodiendi sunt, etiam ex ceteris oppidis Siciliae deduci imperantur.

Because he had thrown into them many captive Roman citizens, because he had ordered the rest of the pirates to be shut up in the same place, he understood that, if he had given this counterfeit chief pirate into the same custody, the true leader would be sought by many in the stone-quarries. So he does not dare commit the man to that best and safest custody; finally he fears all Syracuse. He sends the man off — whither? To Lilybaeum, perhaps? I see; yet he does not at all fear sea-faring men. By no means, gentlemen. To Panhormus then? I hear; though above all at Syracuse, since he had been captured in Syracusan territory, if not punished, at least he ought to have been kept.

eo quod multos captivos civis Romanos coniecerat, quod eodem ceteros piratas condi imperarat, intellexit, si hunc subditivum archipiratam in eandem custodiam dedisset, fore ut a multis in lautumiis verus ille dux quaereretur. itaque hominem huic optimae tutissimaeque custodiae non audet committere, denique Syracusas totas timet, amandat hominem—quo? Lilybaeum fortasse? video; tamen homines maritimos non plane reformidat. minime, iudices. Panhormum igitur? audio; quamquam Syracusis, quoniam in Syracusano captus erat, maxime, si minus supplicio adfici, at custodiri oportebat.

Nor even at Panhormus. Whither then? Where do you suppose? Among men most far from any fear or suspicion of pirates, most removed from sailing and maritime matters: to the Centuripines, men most inland, the highest farmers, who would never have feared the name of a sea-going brigand — under you alone as praetor would have shuddered at Apronius, the land-archpirate. And, that any might easily see what was being done by him — so that this counterfeit might easily and willingly pretend to be the man he was not — he commands the Centuripines that he should be treated in food and the rest of things most liberally and most commodiously.

ne Panhormum quidem. quo igitur? quo putatis? ad homines a piratarum metu et suspicione alienissimos, a navigando rebusque maritimis remotissimos, ad Centuripinos, homines maxime mediterraneos, summos aratores, qui nomen numquam timuissent maritimi praedonis, unum te praetore horruissent Apronium, terrestrem archipiratam. et ut quivis facile perspiceret id ab isto actum esse ut ille suppositus facile et libenter se illum qui non erat esse simularet, imperat Centuripinis ut is victu ceterisque rebus quam liberalissime commodissimeque adhiberetur.

Meanwhile the Syracusans, knowing and humane men, who not only could see those things which were plain but also suspect what was hidden, all daily kept the reckoning of the pirates who were being struck with the axe. How many there ought to be, they were guessing from the very ship that had been captured and from the number of the oars. This man, because he had taken away and led off all who had any skill or beauty, suspected that, if he had bound the rest, as the custom is, all together to the stake, there would be a cry of the people, since so many more had been led off than left. For this reason, when he had set up to bring out some at one time, others at another, yet in such a great gathering there was no one who did not keep the reckoning and the number, and not only miss the rest but even demand and require them.

interea Syracusani, homines periti et humani, qui non modo ea quae perspicua essent videre verum etiam occulta suspicari possent, habebant rationem omnes cotidie piratarum qui securi ferirentur; quam multos esse oporteret, ex ipso navigio quod erat captum et ex remorum numero coniciebant. iste, quod omnis qui artifici aliquid habuerant aut formae removerat atque abduxerat, reliquos si, ut consuetudo est, universos ad palum alligasset, clamorem populi fore suspicabatur, cum tanto plures abducti essent quam relicti; propter hanc causam cum instituisset alios alio tempore producere, tamen in tanto conventu nemo erat quin rationem numerumque haberet, et reliquos non desideraret solum sed etiam posceret et flagitaret.

When the great number was lacking, then this unspeakable man began to put in their place and to substitute for those whom he had led to his own house out of the pirates Roman citizens, whom he had before thrown into prison; some of whom he was charging had been Sertorian soldiers, and was saying that, fleeing from Spain, they had put in to Sicily; others, who had been captured by brigands when they were doing business or sailing for some cause, he was alleging had been with the pirates of their own will. So some Roman citizens, lest they should be recognized, with their heads veiled were being snatched from the prison to the stake and to death; others, when they were recognized by many Roman citizens and were defended by all, were yet struck with the axe. Of whose bitterest death and most cruel torture I shall speak when I begin to handle that place; and so I shall speak that, if in that complaint I am about to make about this man’s cruelty and about the most unworthy death of Roman citizens not only my strength but even my life shall fail me, I shall reckon it distinguished and pleasant for me.

cum magnus numerus deesset, tum iste homo nefarius in eorum locum quos domum suam de piratis abduxerat substituere et supponere coepit civis Romanos, quos in carcerem antea coniecerat; quorum alios Sertorianos milites fuisse insimulabat, et ex Hispania fugientis ad Siciliam adpulsos esse dicebat, alios, qui a praedonibus erant capti, cum mercaturas facerent aut aliquam ob causam navigarent, sua voluntate cum piratis fuisse arguebat. itaque alii cives Romani, ne cognoscerentur, capitibus obvolutis e carcere ad palum atque ad necem rapiebantur, alii, cum a multis civibus Romanis cognoscerentur, ab omnibus defenderentur, securi feriebantur. quorum ego de acerbissima morte crudelissimoque cruciatu dicam cum eum locum tractare coepero, et ita dicam ut, si me in ea querimonia quam sum habiturus de istius crudelitate et de civium Romanorum indignissima morte non modo vires verum etiam vita deficiat, id mihi praeclarum et iucundum putem.

This therefore is the deed done, this the distinguished victory: a pirate light vessel captured, the leader freed, musicians sent to Rome, beautiful men and youths and craftsmen led off home; in their place and to their number Roman citizens tortured and killed in a hostile manner; all the clothing carried off; all the gold and silver carried off and diverted. But how he himself put himself in it in the previous hearing! Who, when he had been silent through so many days, suddenly at the testimony of M. Annius, a most splendid man — when he had said that a Roman citizen had been struck with the axe and denied that the chief pirate had been — leaped up by his consciousness of crime and roused by the frenzy conceived from his evil deeds. He said that, because he knew it would be brought as a charge against him that he had taken money and had not exacted punishment from the true chief pirate, therefore he had not struck him with the axe. He said that he had at his own house two chief pirates.

haec igitur est gesta res, haec victoria praeclara: myoparone piratico capto dux liberatus, symphoniaci Romam missi, formosi homines et adulescentes et artifices domum abducti, in eorum locum et ad eorum numerum cives Romani hostilem in modum cruciati et necati, omnis vestis ablata, omne aurum et argentum ablatum et aversum. at quem ad modum ipse se induit priore actione! qui tot dies tacuisset, repente in M. Anni, hominis splendidissimi, testimonio,—cum is civem Romanum dixisset, archipiratam negasset securi esse percussum,—exsiluit conscientia sceleris et furore ex maleficiis concepto excitatus; dixit se, quod sciret sibi crimini datum iri pecuniam accepisse neque de vero archipirata sumpsisse supplicium, ideo se securi non percussisse; domi esse apud sese archipiratas dixit duos.

O the clemency of the Roman people, or rather their wonderful and singular patience! M. Annius, a Roman knight, says that a Roman citizen was struck with the axe; you are silent: he denies that a chief pirate was; you confess. There is a groan and cry of all, while yet the Roman people held back from your immediate punishment, and reserved the reckoning of its own safety for the strictness of the judges. What? Did you know it would be brought as a charge against you? Why did you know? Why did you even suspect? You had no enemy. Even if you had, yet you had not so lived that you ought to have had the fear of trial set before you. Or did the consciousness of your guilt — which is wont to happen — make you fearful and suspicious? You then, when you were in command, even then shuddered at charge and trial: now, when by so many witnesses you are convicted, can you doubt of condemnation?

O clementiam populi Romani seu potius patientiam miram ac singularem! civem Romanum securi esse percussum M. Annius, eques Romanus, dicit, taces: archipiratam negat, fateris. fit gemitus omnium et clamor, cum tamen a praesenti supplicio tuo continuit populus Romanus se et repressit et salutis suae rationem iudicum severitati reservavit. quid? sciebas tibi crimini datum iri? quam ob rem sciebas, quam ob rem etiam suspicabare? inimicum habebas neminem; si haberes, tamen non ita vixeras ut metum iudici propositum habere deberes. an te, id quod fieri solet, conscientia timidum suspiciosumque faciebat? qui igitur, cum esses cum imperio, iam tum crimen et iudicium horrueris, cum tot testibus coarguare potes de damnatione dubitare?

But if you feared this charge — that someone should say a counterfeit had been struck with the axe by you for a chief pirate — which then did you reckon would be the firmer for your defence: in the trial, by my compulsion and request, to bring forth before strangers, after so long a time, the man whom you should say was the chief pirate; or, the matter fresh, at Syracuse, before those who knew, with almost all Sicily looking on, to strike with the axe? See what difference there is in which had to be done. In the former there would be no reproach; in this there is no defence. So all have always done that; this who has done before you, who beside you, I ask. You held a pirate alive. To what limit? While you were in command. For what cause, by what example, why so long? Why, I say, when the Roman citizens whom the pirates had captured were at once struck with the axe, did you give to the pirates themselves so long-lasting an enjoyment of the light?

verum si crimen hoc metuebas, ne quis suppositum abs te esse diceret qui pro archipirata securi feriretur, utrum tandem tibi ad defensionem firmius fore putasti, in iudicio coactu atque efflagitatu meo producere ad ignotos tanto post eum quem archipiratam esse diceres, an recenti re, Syracusis, apud notos, inspectante Sicilia paene tota, securi ferire? vide quid intersit utrum faciendum fuerit: in illo reprehensio nulla esset, hic defensio nulla est. itaque illud semper omnes fecerunt, hoc quis ante te, quis praeter te, fecerit quaero. piratam vivum tenuisti. quem ad finem? dum cum imperio fuisti. quam ob causam, quo exemplo, cur tam diu? cur, inquam, civibus Romanis quos piratae ceperant securi statim percussis, ipsis piratis lucis usuram tam diuturnam dedisti?

But suppose so. Let all that time when you were in command be free to you. Even as a private man, even as a defendant, even almost condemned, did you keep the leaders of the enemy in a private house? One month, a second, finally almost a year from the time when they were captured, the pirates were at your house, as long as it was allowed me — that is, as long as it was allowed by Manius Glabrio, who at my request ordered them to be brought forth and shut up in prison. What is the right of this matter, what the custom, what the example? Could the most fierce and most hostile enemy of the Roman people, or rather the common enemy of all races and nations, be kept by any private mortal within the walls of his own house?

verum esto, sit tibi illud liberum omne tempus quoad cum imperio fuisti: etiamne privatus, etiamne reus, etiamne paene damnatus hostium duces privata in domo retinuisti? Vnum, alterum mensem, prope annum denique domi tuae piratae a quo tempore capti sunt, quoad per me licitum est, fuerunt, hoc est quoad per M’. Glabrionem licitum est, qui postulante me produci atque in carcerem condi imperavit. quod est huiusce rei ius, quae consuetudo, quod exemplum? hostem acerrimum atque infestissimum populi Romani seu potius communem hostem gentium nationumque omnium quisquam omnium mortalium privatus intra moenia domi suae retinere poterit?

What? If the day before you were forced by me to confess that, with Roman citizens struck with the axe, the leader of the brigands was alive and lived at your house — if, I say, the day before he had fled from your home, if he had been able to make any band against the commonwealth, what would you say? "He lived at my house, was with me; I kept him alive and unhurt for my own trial, that I might more easily dispel my enemies’ charge." Indeed? Will you defend your perils by a common peril? Will you transfer the punishments which are owed to conquered enemies to your own time, not to the commonwealth’s? Shall the enemy of the Roman people be kept under the guards of a private man? But even those who triumph, and for that reason longer keep the leaders of the enemy alive, that, when these have been led in triumph, the Roman people may take in the most beautiful spectacle and fruit of victory — yet, when they begin to turn the chariots from the forum onto the Capitoline, they order them to be led to prison, and the same day makes an end both of imperium for the victors and of life for the conquered.

quid? si pridie quam a me tu coactus es confiteri civibus Romanis securi percussis praedonum ducem vivere, habitare apud te,—si, inquam, pridie domo tua profugisset, si aliquam manum contra rem publicam facere potuisset, quid diceres? ’ apud me habitavit, mecum fuit; ego illum ad iudicium meum, quo facilius crimen inimicorum diluere possem, vivum atque incolumem reservavi.’ itane vero? tu tua pericula communi periculo defendes? tu supplicia quae debentur hostibus victis ad tuum, non ad rei publicae tempus conferes? populi Romani hostis privati hominis custodiis adservabitur? at etiam qui triumphant eoque diutius vivos hostium duces reservant, ut his per triumphum ductis pulcherrimum spectaculum fructumque victoriae populus Romanus percipere possit, tamen cum de foro in Capitolium currus flectere incipiunt illos duci in carcerem iubent, idemque dies et victoribus imperi et victis vitae finem facit.

And now I trust no one doubts that you would not have committed yourself — especially when you had decided, as you say, that you would have to plead a case — to letting the chief pirate be struck with the axe rather than (which was set before your eyes) live at your peril. For if he had been dead, you, who say you feared the charge, I ask, to whom would you prove it? When it was agreed that this man had been seen by no one at Syracuse as the chief pirate, that he was missed by all, when no one doubted that he had been freed by you for money, when commonly men were saying a counterfeit had been put in his place whom you wished to prove instead of him, when you yourself had confessed that you had so long before feared the charge — if you should say he was dead, who would hear you?

et nunc cuiquam credo esse dubium quin tu id commissurus non fueris,—praesertim cum statuisses, ut ais, tibi causam esse dicendam,—ut ille archipirata non potius securi feriretur quam, quod erat ante oculos positum, tuo periculo viveret! si enim esset mortuus, tu, qui crimen ais te metuisse, quaero, cui probares? cum constaret istum Syracusis nullo visum esse archipiratam, ab omnibus desideratum, cum dubitaret nemo quin abs te pecunia liberatus esset, cum vulgo loquerentur suppositum in eius locum quem pro illo probare velles, cum tu te fassus esses id crimen tanto ante metuisse: si eum diceres esse mortuum, quis te audiret?

Now, when you bring forth I know not what living one, you yet see that you are laughed at. What? If he had fled, if he had broken his chains as Nico, that most noble pirate, did, whom Publius Servilius with the same good fortune as he had captured him recovered, what would you say? But this was the truth: if that one true pirate had once been struck with the axe, you would not have that money. If this counterfeit had died or fled, it would not be hard to substitute another in the place of the substitute. I have spoken more than I wished about that chief pirate, and yet I have passed over the surest proofs of this charge. For I wish this whole charge to be kept entire for me; there is a fixed place, a fixed law, a fixed court, for which this is reserved.

nunc cum vivum nescio quem istum producis, tamen te derideri vides. quid? si aufugisset, si vincla rupisset ita ut Nico, ille nobilissimus pirata, fecit, quem P. Servilius qua felicitate ceperat eadem recuperavit, quid diceres? verum hoc erat: si ille semel verus pirata securi percussus esset, pecuniam illam non haberes; si hic falsus esset mortuus aut profugisset, non esset difficile alium in suppositi locum supponere. plura dixi quam volui de illo archipirata, et tamen ea quae certissima sunt huius criminis argumenta praetermisi. volo enim esse totum mihi crimen hoc integrum: est certus locus, certa lex, certum tribunal quo hoc reservetur.

Made richer by this great plunder, enriched by slaves, silver, clothing, he was no more diligent at adorning the fleet, recalling and feeding the soldiers — although the matter could be not only for the safety of the province but even for the plunder itself. For in the height of summer, at which time the rest of the praetors are wont to make a circuit of the province and to hurry round, or even, in such great fear and peril of pirates, to sail themselves — at that time he was not content with his own royal house (which was King Hiero’s, which the praetors are wont to use) for his luxury and lusts. He ordered tents (as he had been wont in the summer seasons, which I have shown before) stretched with linen sails to be set up on the shore, which is the shore on the Island at Syracuse behind the fountain of Arethusa, near the very entrance and mouth of the harbour, in a pleasant and from witnesses removed place.

hac tanta praeda auctus, mancipiis argento veste locupletatus, nihilo diligentior ad classem ornandam milites revocandos alendosque esse coepit, cum ea res non solum provinciae saluti verum etiam ipsi praedae posset esse. nam aestate summa, quo tempore ceteri praetores obire provinciam et concursare consuerunt aut etiam in tanto praedonum metu et periculo ipsi navigare, eo tempore ad luxuriem libidinesque suas domo sua regia—quae regis Hieronis fuit, qua praetores uti solent —contentus non fuit; tabernacula, quem ad modum consuerat temporibus aestivis, quod antea demonstravi, carbaseis intenta velis conlocari iussit in litore, quod est litus in Insula Syracusis post Arethusae fontem propter ipsum introitum atque ostium portus amoeno sane et ab arbitris remoto loco.

Here through the summer days the praetor of the Roman people, the guardian and defender of the province, so lived that there were daily women’s banquets. No man took his place save he himself and the praetexta-clad son — although I had said rightly without exception "no man," since with these men there, there was none. Sometimes also his freedman Timarchides was brought in. The women, however, were married noblewomen save one, the daughter of the mime Isidorus, whom this man, on account of love, had led off from the Rhodian flute-player. There was a certain Pipa, the wife of Aeschrio of Syracuse, about which woman very many verses, which were made about this man’s lust, are spread through all Sicily.

hic dies aestivos praetor populi Romani, custos defensorque provinciae, sic vixit ut muliebria cotidie convivia essent, vir accumberet nemo praeter ipsum et praetextatum filium—etsi recte sine exceptione dixeram virum, cum isti essent, neminem fuisse. non numquam etiam libertus Timarchides adhibebatur, mulieres autem nuptae nobiles praeter unam mimi Isidori filiam, quam iste propter amorem ab Rhodio tibicine abduxerat. erat Pipa quaedam, uxor Aeschrionis Syracusani, de qua muliere plurimi versus qui in istius cupiditatem facti sunt tota Sicilia percelebrantur;

There was Nice, of singular face (so it is proclaimed), wife of Cleomenes of Syracuse. The husband loved her; but yet against this man’s lust he could neither nor dared resist, and at the same time was being bound by him with many gifts and benefits. But at that time this man, although the man’s shamelessness is what you know, yet himself, since the husband was at Syracuse, had little chance with a soul free and at ease to keep his wife so many days on the shore with him. So he devises a singular thing. The ships which the legate had commanded he hands over to Cleomenes; he orders Cleomenes the Syracusan to be in command of the fleet of the Roman people. He does this so that the man should not only be away from home while he sailed, but also be willingly absent with great honour and favour, while he himself, with the husband removed and sent away — not more freely than before (for who has ever stood in the way of his lust?), but with a somewhat freer spirit yet — might keep her with him, as having removed him not as a husband but as a rival.

erat nice, facie eximia, ut praedicatur, uxor Cleomeni Syracusani. hanc vir amabat, verum tamen huius libidini adversari nec poterat nec audebat, et simul ab isto donis beneficiisque multis devinciebatur. illo autem tempore iste, tametsi ea est hominis impudentia quam nostis, ipse tamen cum vir esset Syracusis, uxorem eius parum poterat animo soluto ac libero tot in acta dies secum habere. itaque excogitat rem singularem; navis quibus legatus praefuerat Cleomeni tradit, classi populi Romani Cleomenem Syracusanum praeesse iubet atque imperare. hoc eo facit ut ille non solum abesset a domo dum navigaret, sed etiam libenter cum magno honore beneficioque abesset, ipse autem remoto atque ablegato viro non liberius quam antea—quis enim umquam istius libidini obstitit?—sed paulo solutiore animo tamen secum illam haberet, si non tamquam virum sed tamquam aemulum removisset.

Cleomenes the Syracusan receives the ships of the allies and friends. What shall I first either accuse or complain of? That the power of a legate, of a quaestor, finally of a praetor, the honour, the authority, was given to a Sicilian? If that taking up with banquets and women hindered you, where were the quaestors, where the legates, where the grain assessed at three denarii, where the mules, where the tents, where so many great ornaments granted and given to magistrates and legates by the senate and Roman people; finally, where your prefects, where your tribunes? If no Roman citizen was worthy of that business, what of the cities which had remained perpetually in the friendship and faith of the Roman people? Where was the Segestan state, where the Centuripine? Which both by services, by faith, by age, and even by kinship touch the name of the Roman people.

accipit navis sociorum atque amicorum Cleomenes Syracusanus. quid primum aut accusem aut querar? Siculone homini legati, quaestoris, praetoris denique potestatem, honorem, auctoritatem dari? si te impediebat ista conviviorum mulierumque occupatio, ubi quaestores, ubi legati, ubi ternis denariis aestimatum frumentum, ubi muli, ubi tabernacula, ubi tot tantaque ornamenta magistratibus et legatis a senatu populoque Romano permissa et data, denique ubi praefecti, ubi tribuni tui? si civis Romanus dignus isto negotio nemo fuit, quid civitates quae in amicitia fideque populi Romani perpetuo manserant? ubi Segestana, ubi Centuripina civitas? quae cum officiis fide vetustate, tum etiam cognatione populi Romani nomen attingunt.

O immortal gods! What? If Cleomenes of Syracuse was ordered to command the soldiers, ships, captains of these very cities, was not all honour of dignity, of equity, of duty taken from him by you? Did we ever wage any war in Sicily that we did not have the Centuripines as allies, the Syracusans as enemies? But these things I wish referred to the memory of antiquity, not to the insult of the city. So that most distinguished man and highest general, Marcus Marcellus, by whose virtue Syracuse was taken, by whose pity it was kept safe, did not wish any Syracusan to live in that part of the city which is in the Island; today, I say, no Syracusan is allowed to live in that part. For there is a place which even few could defend. He did not therefore wish to entrust it to least faithful men — at the same time because from that part of the city the approach to ships from the deep is open. So those who had often shut out our armies, to them he reckoned the keys of the place should not be entrusted.

O di immortales! quid? si harum ipsarum civitatum militibus, navibus, nauarchis Syracusanus Cleomenes iussus est imperare, non omnis honos ab isto dignitatis, aequitatis, officique sublatus est? ecquod in Sicilia bellum gessimus quin Centuripinis sociis, Syracusanis hostibus uteremur? atque haec ego ad memoriam vetustatis, non ad contumeliam civitatis referri volo. itaque ille vir clarissimus summusque imperator, M. Marcellus, cuius virtute captae, misericordia conservatae sunt Syracusae, habitare in ea parte urbis quae in Insula est Syracusanum neminem voluit; hodie, inquam, Syracusanum in ea parte habitare non licet; est enim locus quem vel pauci possent defendere. committere igitur eum non fidelissimis hominibus noluit, simul quod ab illa parte urbis navibus aditus ex alto est; quam ob rem qui nostros exercitus saepe excluserant, iis claustra loci committenda non existimavit.

See what difference there is between your lust and the authority of our ancestors, between your love and frenzy and their counsel and prudence. They took the approach of the shore from the Syracusans; you have given them maritime command. They did not wish a Syracusan to live in that place from which ships could approach; you wished a Syracusan to be in command of the fleet and ships. Those from whom they took a part of their own city, to those you have given a part of our imperium; and those by whose help as allies the Syracusans obey our word, them you have ordered to obey the word of a Syracusan.

vide quid intersit inter tuam libidinem maiorumque auctoritatem, inter amorem furoremque tuum et illorum consilium atque prudentiam. illi aditum litoris Syracusanis ademerunt, tu imperium maritimum concessisti; illi habitare in eo loco Syracusanum, qua naves accedere possent, noluerunt, tu classi et navibus Syracusanum praeesse voluisti; quibus illi urbis suae partem ademerunt, iis tu nostri imperi partem dedisti, et quorum sociorum opera Syracusani nobis dicto audientes sunt, eos Syracusano dicto audientis esse iussisti.

Cleomenes goes out from the harbour in a Centuripine quadrireme. There follows a Segestan ship, a Tyndaritan, a Herbitensian, a Heraclean, an Apolloniate, a Haluntine — a fleet famous in show, but lacking and weak on account of the dismissal of the marines and rowers. So long this man, the diligent praetor, saw the fleet in his own command as long as it sailed past his most disgraceful banquet. He himself, who had not been seen for many days, then for a little gave himself into the sight of the sailors. The praetor of the Roman people stood with sandals on, in a purple cloak and tunic to the ankles, leaning on a little woman on the shore. In this dress already this man Sicilians and very many Roman citizens had often seen.

egreditur in Centuripina quadriremi Cleomenes e portu; sequitur Segestana navis, Tyndaritana, Herbitensis, Heracliensis, Apolloniensis, Haluntina, praeclara classis in speciem, sed inops et infirma propter dimissionem propugnatorum atque remigum. tam diu in imperio suo classem iste praetor diligens vidit quam diu convivium eius flagitiosissimum praetervecta est; ipse autem, qui visus multis diebus non esset, tum se tamen in conspectum nautis paulisper dedit. stetit soleatus praetor populi Romani cum pallio purpureo tunicaque talari muliercula nixus in litore. iam hoc istum vestitu Siculi civesque Romani permulti saepe viderant.

After the fleet had gone forward a little and on the fifth day at last had put in to Pachynus, the sailors, compelled by hunger, gathered the roots of wild palms (of which there was in those places, as in much of Sicily, a great quantity) and on these the wretched and ruined men were fed. But Cleomenes, who reckoned himself a second Verres in luxury and wickedness as also in command, in like manner spent whole days drinking on the shore in a tent set up. But behold, suddenly, with Cleomenes drunk and the rest hungering, news comes that there are pirate ships in the harbour Odysseia (for so the place is named); but our fleet was at the harbour of Pachynus. But Cleomenes, since there was a land guard not in fact but in name, hoped that with those soldiers whom he had led away from that place he could fill out the number of sailors and rowers. The same reasoning of this most greedy man was found in the garrisons as in the fleet; for very few were left, the rest discharged.

posteaquam paulum provecta classis est et Pachynum quinto die denique adpulsa, nautae coacti fame radices palmarum agrestium, quarum erat in illis locis, sicuti in magna parte Siciliae, multitudo, colligebant et iis miseri perditique alebantur; Cleomenes autem, qui alterum se Verrem cum luxurie ac nequitia tum etiam imperio putaret, similiter totos dies in litore tabernaculo posito perpotabat. ecce autem repente ebrio Cleomene esurientibus ceteris nuntiatur piratarum esse navis in portu Odysseae; nam ita is locus nominatur; nostra autem classis erat in portu Pachyni. Cleomenes autem, quod erat terrestre praesidium non re sed nomine, speravit iis militibus quos ex eo loco deduxisset explere se numerum nautarum et remigum posse. reperta est eadem istius hominis avarissimi ratio in praesidiis quae in classibus; nam erant perpauci reliqui, ceteri dimissi.

Cleomenes the chief in the Centuripine quadrireme ordered the mast to be raised, the sails to be made, the anchors to be cut. At the same time he gave the signal that the rest should follow him. This Centuripine ship was of incredible speed under sail; for what each ship could do with oars no one under this man as praetor could know. Although in this quadrireme on account of the honour and favour of Cleomenes very few rowers and soldiers were lacking. The quadrireme had now flown almost out of sight, fleeing, when even then the rest of the ships in one place were struggling.

princeps Cleomenes in quadriremi Centuripina malum erigi, vela fieri, praecidi ancoras imperavit, et simul ut se ceteri sequerentur signum dari iussit. haec Centuripina navis erat incredibili celeritate velis; nam scire isto praetore nemo poterat quid quaeque navis remis facere posset; etsi in hac quadriremi propter honorem et gratiam Cleomenis minime multi remiges et milites deerant. evolarat iam e conspectu fere fugiens quadriremis, cum etiam tum ceterae naves uno in loco moliebantur.

There was spirit in the rest. Although they were few, however the matter stood, they cried that they wished to fight, and what hunger had left of life and strength they wished to give back rather by the sword. But if Cleomenes had not fled so much before, there would yet have been some way of resisting. For that ship alone was decked, and so great that it could be a defence to the rest, which, if it had been engaged in a battle of brigands, would seem to have the look of a city among those pirate light vessels. But then the helpless, abandoned by their leader and the prefect of the fleet, of necessity began to hold the same course.

erat animus in reliquis; quamquam erant pauci, quoquo modo res se habebat, pugnare tamen se velle clamabant, et quod reliquum vitae viriumque fames fecerat id ferro potissimum reddere volebant. quodsi Cleomenes non tanto ante fugisset, aliqua tamen ad resistendum ratio fuisset. erat enim sola illa navis constrata et ita magna ut propugnaculo ceteris posset esse, quae si in praedonum pugna versaretur, urbis instar habere inter illos piraticos myoparones videretur; sed tum inopes, relicti ab duce praefectoque classis, eundem necessario cursum tenere coeperunt.

Toward Helorus, as Cleomenes himself, so the rest sailed; and they were not so much fleeing the assault of the brigands as following the general. Then as each was last in flight, so he was first in danger; for each last ship the pirates attacked first. So the first ship of the Haluntines is taken, of which a Haluntine noble man, the phylarch, was in command, whom afterwards the Locrenses ransomed publicly from those brigands. From which man you have learned, by his oath, the whole matter and case in the previous hearing. Then the Apolloniate ship is taken, and its prefect Anthropinus is killed.

Helorum versus, ut ipse Cleomenes, ita ceteri navigabant, neque ii tam praedonum impetum fugiebant quam imperatorem sequebantur. tum ut quisque in fuga postremus, ita in periculo princeps erat; postremam enim quamque navem piratae primam adoriebantur. ita prima Haluntinorum navis capitur, cui praeerat Haluntinus homo nobilis, phylarchus, quem ab illis praedonibus Locrenses postea publice redemerunt; ex quo vos priore actione iurato rem omnem causamque cognostis. deinde Apolloniensis navis capitur, et eius praefectus Anthropinus occiditur.

While these things were going on, meanwhile Cleomenes had now reached the shore of Helorus; he had now thrown himself out of the ship onto land, and had left the quadrireme tossing on the swell. The rest of the prefects of the ships, when their general had gone out onto the land — since they could neither fight back nor flee by sea in any way — with their ships put in to Helorus, followed Cleomenes. Then the leader of the brigands, Heracleo, suddenly beyond hope conqueror not by his own virtue but by this man’s greed and wickedness, ordered the most beautiful fleet of the Roman people, driven up and cast on the shore, to be set on fire and burned, when first it was growing dark.

haec dum aguntur, interea Cleomenes iam ad Helori litus pervenerat; iam sese in terram e navi eiecerat quadrirememque fluctuantem in salo reliquerat. reliqui praefecti navium, cum in terram imperator exisset, cum ipsi neque repugnare neque mari effugere ullo modo possent, adpulsis ad Helorum navibus Cleomenem persecuti sunt. tum praedonum dux Heracleo, repente praeter spem non sua virtute sed istius avaritia nequitiaque victor, classem pulcherrimam populi Romani in litus expulsam et eiectam, cum primum invesperasceret, inflammari incendique iussit.

O wretched and bitter time of the province of Sicily! That accident calamitous and deadly to many innocent men! O the singular wickedness and shamefulness of this man! One and the same was the night in which the praetor blazed with the flame of a most foul love, and the fleet of the Roman people with the burning of brigands. The grave news of this ill is brought to Syracuse in the dead of night. Men run to the praetorium, to which the women had brought him back from that famous banquet a little before with song and music. Cleomenes, although it was night, yet does not dare to be in public; he shuts himself up at home; nor was his wife present, who could comfort the man in his ills.

O tempus miserum atque acerbum provinciae Siciliae! casum illum multis innocentibus calamitosum atque funestum! o istius nequitiam ac turpitudinem singularem! Vna atque eadem nox erat qua praetor amoris turpissimi flamma, classis populi Romani praedonum incendio conflagrabat. adfertur nocte intempesta gravis huiusce mali nuntius Syracusas; curritur ad praetorium, quo istum ex illo praeclaro convivio reduxerant paulo ante mulieres cum cantu atque symphonia. Cleomenes, quamquam nox erat, tamen in publico esse non audet; includit se domi; neque aderat uxor, quae consolari hominem in malis posset.

But the discipline of this distinguished general was so strict at home that in such a great matter, with so grave a message, no one was admitted, no one was there who would dare either to rouse him sleeping or to interrupt him waking. Now, indeed, with the matter known to all, the greatest multitude was running about through the whole city. For (as the custom had always been before) the coming of brigands was not signified by a fire raised on a watchtower or hill, but the flame from the very burning of the ships announced both the calamity received and the peril remaining. When the praetor was being looked for and it was agreed that no one had announced it to him, a running and onset is made to his house with shouting.

huius autem praeclari imperatoris ita erat severa domi disciplina ut in re tanta et tam gravi nuntio nemo admitteretur, nemo esset qui auderet aut dormientem excitare aut interpellare vigilantem. iam vero re ab omnibus cognita concursabat urbe tota maxima multitudo. non enim, sicut erat antea semper consuetudo, praedonum adventum significabat ignis e specula sublatus aut tumulo, sed flamma ex ipso incendio navium et calamitatem acceptam et periculum reliquum nuntiabat. cum praetor quaereretur et constaret neminem ei nuntiasse, fit ad domum eius cum clamore concursus atque impetus.

Then this man, roused, hears the whole matter from Timarchides; takes up his cloak — it was now growing light — comes forward into the midst, full of wine, sleep, debauchery. He is received by all with such a cry that the likeness of his Lampsacene peril came before his eyes. This even seemed greater, because in like hatred this multitude of men was the largest. Then his deeds were recalled; then those scandalous banquets; then the women were called by the multitude by name; then they asked of him openly through so many continuous days during which he had never been seen, where he had been, what he had done. Then the general appointed by him, Cleomenes, was demanded; nor was anything closer to being done than that the Utican example of Hadrianus should be transferred to Syracuse, that two tombs of two dishonest praetors should be set up in two provinces. But account was taken by the multitude of the time, of the tumult, even of the dignity and common standing, that this assize of Roman citizens at Syracuse is reckoned worthy not only of that province, but even of this commonwealth.

tum iste excitatus audit rem omnem ex Timarchide, sagum sumit,—lucebat iam fere,— procedit in medium vini somni stupri plenus. excipitur ab omnibus eius modi clamore ut ei Lampsaceni periculi similitudo versaretur ante oculos; hoc etiam maius hoc videbatur, quod in odio simili multitudo hominum haec erat maxima. tum istius acta commemorabatur, tum flagitiosa illa convivia, tum appellabantur a multitudine mulieres nominatim, tum quaerebant ex isto palam tot dies continuos per quos numquam visus esset ubi fuisset, quid egisset, tum imperator ab isto praepositus Cleomenes flagitabatur, neque quicquam propius est factum quam ut illud Vticense exemplum de Hadriano transferretur Syracusas, ut duo sepulchra duorum praetorum improborum duabus in provinciis constituerentur. verum habita est a multitudine ratio temporis, habita tumultus, habita etiam dignitatis existimationisque communis, quod is est conventus Syracusis civium Romanorum ut non modo illa provincia, verum etiam hac re publica dignissimus existimetur.

They confirm themselves, while this man even then half-sleeping was stupid; they take up arms; they fill the whole forum and the Island, which is a great part of the city. The brigands, having tarried that one night alone at Helorus, when they had left even our ships still smoking, begin to approach Syracuse. They, who, of course, had often heard that nothing was more beautiful than the walls and harbours of Syracuse, had decided that, if they had not seen them under Verres as praetor, they would never see them.

confirmant ipsi se, cum hic etiam tum semisomnus stuperet, arma capiunt, totum forum atque Insulam, quae est urbis magna pars, complent. Vnam illam noctem solam praedones ad Helorum commorati, cum fumantis etiam nostras navis reliquissent, accedere incipiunt Syracusas; qui videlicet saepe audissent nihil esse pulchrius quam Syracusarum moenia ac portus, statuerant se, si ea Verre praetore non vidissent, numquam esse visuros.

And first they approach those summer haunts of the praetor, that very part of the shore where this man through those days, with tents pitched, had set up the camp of his luxury. After they found this place empty and felt that the praetor had moved his camp from that place, at once without any fear they began to enter into the very harbour. When I say into the harbour, gentlemen — for it must be more diligently explained for the sake of those who do not know the place — I say that pirates came into the city and into the inmost part of the city. For that town is not shut in by a harbour; rather the harbour itself is girdled and held in by the city, so that the outer walls are not washed by the sea, but the harbour itself flows into the bosom of the city.

ac primo ad illa aestiva praetoris accedunt, ipsam illam ad partem litoris ubi iste per eos dies tabernaculis positis castra luxuriae conlocarat. quem posteaquam inanem locum offenderunt et praetorem commosse ex eo loco castra senserunt, statim sine ullo metu in ipsum portum penetrare coeperunt. cum in portum dico, iudices,— explanandum est enim diligentius eorum causa qui locum ignorant,—in urbem dico atque in urbis intimam partem venisse piratas; non enim portu illud oppidum clauditur, sed urbe portus ipse cingitur et continetur, ut non adluantur mari moenia extrema, sed ipse influat in urbis sinum portus.

Here under you as praetor the pirate Heracleo with four small light vessels sailed at his own discretion. By the immortal gods! A pirate light vessel, when the name of the imperium of the Roman people and the fasces were at Syracuse, came as far as the forum of the Syracusans and to all the steps of the city, where neither the most glorious fleets of the Carthaginians, when they were most powerful at sea, in many wars often attempted, were ever able to come; nor was the once unconquered glory of the Roman people at sea, before you were praetor, ever able to penetrate in so many Punic and Sicilian wars. The place is such that the Syracusans saw before within their walls, in their city, in their forum, an armed and victorious enemy than they ever saw a single ship of enemies in the harbour.

hic te praetore Heracleo pirata cum quattuor myoparonibus parvis ad arbitrium suum navigavit. pro di immortales! piraticus myoparo, cum imperi populi Romani nomen ac fasces essent Syracusis, usque ad forum Syracusanorum et ad omnis crepidines urbis accessit, quo neque Carthaginiensium gloriosissimae classes, cum mari plurimum poterant, multis bellis saepe conatae umquam aspirare potuerunt, neque populi Romani invicta ante te praetorem gloria illa navalis umquam tot Punicis Siciliensibusque bellis penetrare potuit; qui locus eius modi est ut ante Syracusani in moenibus suis, in urbe, in foro hostem armatum ac victorem quam in portu ullam hostium navem viderint.

Here, with you as praetor, the little ships of brigands wandered to where the fleet of the Athenians alone, since the memory of men, broke in with three hundred ships by force and multitude, which in that very harbour was conquered and overcome by the nature of the place itself and of the harbour. Here first the resources of that state were broken and pressed down. In this harbour the shipwreck of the nobility, the imperium, the glory of the Athenians is reckoned to have been made. Did a pirate enter where, as soon as he came in, he left a great part of the city not only on his side but also at his back? He sailed past the whole Island, which is a city at Syracuse with its own name and walls, in which place our ancestors, as I said before, forbade a Syracusan to live, because they understood that those who held that part of the city would have the harbour in their power.

hic, te praetore, praedonum naviculae pervagatae sunt quo Atheniensium classis sola post hominum memoriam trecentis navibus vi ac multitudine invasit; quae in eo ipso portu loci ipsius portusque natura victa atque superata est. hic primum opes illius civitatis comminutae depressaeque sunt: in hoc portu Atheniensium nobilitatis, imperi, gloriae naufragium factum existimatur. Eone pirata penetravit quo simul atque adisset non modo a latere sed etiam a tergo magnam partem urbis relinqueret? Insulam totam praetervectus est, quae est urbs Syracusis suo nomine ac moenibus, quo in loco maiores, ut ante dixi, Syracusanum habitare vetuerunt, quod, qui illam partem urbis tenerent, in eorum potestatem portum futurum intellegebant.

But how he wandered! They were throwing roots of wild palms, which they had found in our ships, that all might know this man’s wickedness and the calamity of Sicily. Were the Sicilian soldiers, the children of the farmers, whose fathers ploughed up so much grain by their toil that they could supply the Roman people and all Italy — they, born on the island of Ceres, where fruits are said to have first been found — to have used such food as their ancestors removed all others from when fruits had been found! Under you as praetor the Sicilian soldiers were fed on roots of palms, the pirates on Sicilian grain!

at quem ad modum est pervagatus! radices palmarum agrestium, quas in nostris navibus invenerant, iactabant, ut omnes istius improbitatem et calamitatem Siciliae possent cognoscere. Siculosne milites, aratorumne liberos, quorum patres tantum labore suo frumenti exarabant ut populo Romano totique Italiae suppeditare possent, eosne in insula Cereris natos, ubi primum fruges inventae esse dicuntur, eo cibo esse usos a quo maiores eorum ceteros quoque frugibus inventis removerunt! te praetore Siculi milites palmarum stirpibus, piratae Siculo frumento alebantur!

O wretched and bitter spectacle! That the glory of the city, the name of the Roman people, the gathering and multitude of all men should be a mockery to a pirate light vessel! That a pirate should celebrate a triumph in the Syracusan harbour over the fleet of the Roman people, when the oars of the brigands should splash the eyes of a most idle and most worthless praetor! After the pirates had departed from the harbour, not affected by any fear but by satiety, then men began to seek the cause of so great a calamity. All said and openly disputed that it was least wonderful, if the rowers and soldiers were dismissed, the rest ruined by want and hunger, the praetor for so many days carousing with little women, that so great an ignominy and calamity should have been received.

O spectaculum miserum atque acerbum! ludibrio esse urbis gloriam, populi Romani nomen, omnium hominum conventum atque multitudinem piratico myoparoni! in portu Syracusano de classe populi Romani triumphum agere piratam, cum praetoris inertissimi nequissimique oculos praedonum remi respergerent! posteaquam e portu piratae non metu aliquo adfecti sed satietate exierunt, tum coeperunt quaerere homines causam illius tantae calamitatis. dicere omnes et palam disputare minime esse mirandum si remigibus militibusque dimissis, reliquis egestate et fame perditis, praetore tot dies cum mulierculis perpotante, tanta ignominia et calamitas esset accepta.

But this reproach and infamy of his was confirmed by the talk of those who had been put in command of those ships by their own cities. Those of that number who had been left, with the fleet lost, fled back to Syracuse, and were saying how many out of each man’s ship he knew had been discharged. The matter was clear; nor only by proofs but even by sure witnesses was this man’s audacity caught. The man was made certain that nothing was being done in the forum and in the assize the whole day save this — that it was being asked of the captains in what manner the fleet had been lost; that they were answering and showing each one — by the discharge of the rowers, by the hunger of the rest, by the fear and flight of Cleomenes. After this man learned this, he began to take this counsel. He had decided that he must plead a case even before this came to pass — as you have heard him say in the previous hearing. He saw that, with those captains as witnesses, this charge he could in no way sustain. He takes a counsel at first foolish, but yet mild.

haec autem istius vituperatio atque infamia confirmabatur eorum sermone qui a suis civitatibus illis navibus praepositi fuerant. qui ex illo numero reliqui Syracusas classe amissa refugerant dicebant quot ex sua quisque nave missos sciret esse. res erat clara, neque solum argumentis sed etiam certis testibus istius audacia tenebatur. homo certior fit agi nihil in foro et conventu toto die nisi hoc, quaeri ex nauarchis quem ad modum classis sit amissa; illos respondere et docere unum quemque, missione remigum, fame reliquorum, Cleomenis timore et fuga. quod posteaquam iste cognovit, hanc rationem habere coepit. causam sibi dicendam esse statuerat iam antequam hoc usu venit, ita ut ipsum priore actione dicere audistis. videbat illis nauarchis testibus tantum hoc crimen sustinere se nullo modo posse. consilium capit primo stultum, verum tamen clemens.

He orders the captains to be summoned to him; they come. He blames them for having held such talks about him. He asks that each say in his own ship that he had had only as many sailors as he ought, and that no one had been discharged. They show that they will do what he wishes. This man does not put it off; he calls his friends at once. He asks of each in turn how many sailors each had had. Each one in turn answers as he had been instructed. This man enters it on the tablets; he seals them with the seals of his friends, a foreseeing man, that against this charge, if at any time it were needed, he might use this testimony.

nauarchos ad se vocari iubet; veniunt. accusat eos quod eius modi de se sermones habuerint; rogat ut in sua quisque dicat navi se tantum habuisse nautarum quantum oportuerit, neque quemquam esse dimissum. illi enim vero se ostendunt quod vellet esse facturos. iste non procrastinat, advocat amicos statim; quaerit ex iis singillatim quot quisque nautas habuerit. respondet unus quisque ut erat praeceptum. iste in tabulas refert; obsignat signis amicorum providens homo, ut contra hoc crimen, si quando opus esset, hac videlicet testificatione uteretur.

I trust the senseless man was laughed at by his advisers and warned that these tablets would do him no good — that even more suspicion in that charge would arise from the praetor’s excessive diligence. Now this man had been wont in many things to use this stupidity, that he ordered things he wished to be taken out and entered publicly in the writings of the cities. All which now he understands does him no good, after he is convicted by sure writings, witnesses, authorities. When he sees this — that their confession, his testimony, his tablets will be of no help to him — he takes a counsel not of a dishonest praetor (for that indeed could be borne), but of a fierce and senseless tyrant. He decides, if he wishes this charge to be lessened (for he did not think it could be wholly taken away), that all the captains, witnesses of his crime, must be deprived of life.

derisum esse credo hominem amentem a suis consiliariis et admonitum hasce ei tabulas nihil profuturas, etiam plus ex nimia praetoris diligentia suspicionis in eo crimine futurum. iam iste erat hac stultitia multis in rebus usus ut publice quoque quae vellet in litteris civitatum tolli et referri iuberet; quae omnia nunc intellegit sibi nihil prodesse, posteaquam certis litteris testibus auctoritatibusque convincitur. Vbi hoc videt, illorum confessionem, testificationem suam, tabellas sibi nullo adiumento futuras, init consilium non improbi praetoris,—nam id quidem esset ferendum,—sed importuni atque amentis tyranni: statuit, si hoc crimen extenuari vellet,—nam omnino tolli posse non arbitrabatur,—nauarchos omnis, testis sui sceleris, vita esse privandos.

That reasoning came to him: "What will become of Cleomenes? Shall I be able to animadvert on those whom I ordered to obey his word, and let go him to whom I gave the power and command? Shall I be able to inflict punishment on those who followed Cleomenes, and forgive Cleomenes who ordered them to flee with him and follow him? Shall I be able to be vehement against those who had ships not only empty but even open, slack against him who alone had a decked ship and one less emptied? Let Cleomenes perish too!" Where is the faith, where the oaths, where the right hands and embraces, where that companionship of female military service on that most refined shore? It could in no way be that Cleomenes should not be spared.

occurrebat illa ratio: ’ quid Cleomene fiet? poterone animum advertere in eos quos dicto audientis esse iussi, missum facere eum cui potestatem imperiumque permisi? poterone eos adficere supplicio qui Cleomenen secuti sunt, ignoscere Cleomeni qui secum fugere et se consequi iussit? poterone esse in eos vehemens qui navis non modo inanis habuerunt sed etiam apertas, in eum dissolutus qui solus habuerit constratam navem et minus exinanitam? pereat Cleomenes una!’ Vbi fides, ubi exsecrationes, ubi dexterae complexusque, ubi illud contubernium muliebris militiae in illo delicatissimo litore? fieri nullo modo poterat quin Cleomeni parceretur.

He calls Cleomenes; he tells him that he has decided to animadvert on all the captains; that the reckonings of his own peril so demand. "You alone I shall spare, and shall rather take upon myself the charge of inconsistency in this fault than be cruel to you, or suffer so many such grave witnesses to be alive and unhurt." Cleomenes gives thanks; approves the counsel; says it ought so to be done. He yet warns him of this thing which had escaped him: that against Phalacrus the Centuripine captain it could not be animadverted, because he had been with him in the Centuripine quadrireme. What then? Will a man from such a city, a most noble young man, be left as a witness? "For the present," says Cleomenes, "since it is necessary; but afterwards we shall see something so that he may not be able to stand against us."

vocat Cleomenen, dicit ei se statuisse animadvertere in omnis nauarchos; ita sui periculi rationes ferre ac postulare. ’ tibi uni parcam et potius istius culpae crimen vituperationemque inconstantiae suscipiam quam aut in te sim crudelis aut tot tam gravis testis vivos incolumisque esse patiar.’ agit gratias Cleomenes, adprobat consilium, dicit ita fieri oportere, admonet tamen illud, quod istum fugerat, in Phalacrum, Centuripinum nauarchum, non posse animadverti, propterea quod secum una fuisset in Centuripina quadriremi. quid ergo? iste homo ex eius modi civitate, adulescens nobilissimus, testis relinquetur? ’ in praesentia,’ inquit Cleomenes, ’quoniam ita necesse est; sed post aliquid videbimus ne iste nobis obstare possit.’

After these things were done and settled, this man comes forth suddenly from the praetorium kindled by crime, frenzy, cruelty. He comes into the forum; orders the captains to be summoned. They, who feared nothing, suspected nothing, run up at once. He orders chains to be cast on the wretched and innocent men. They implore the praetor’s faith and ask why he was doing it. Then this man says this for the cause: that they had betrayed the fleet to the brigands. There is a cry and the wonder of the people that there was such great shamelessness and audacity in the man, that he should either ascribe to others the cause of the calamity (which had all happened on account of his own greed); or, when he himself was reckoned the partner of brigands, lay the charge of betrayal against others; then that this charge was born on this fifteenth day after the fleet was lost.

haec posteaquam acta et constituta sunt, procedit iste repente e praetorio inflammatus scelere furore crudelitate; in forum venit, nauarchos vocari iubet. qui nihil metuerent, nihil suspicarentur, statim accurrunt. iste hominibus miseris innocentibus inici catenas imperat. implorare illi fidem praetoris, et quare id faceret rogare. tum iste hoc causae dicit, quod classem praedonibus prodidissent. fit clamor et admiratio populi tantam esse in homine impudentiam atque audaciam ut aut aliis causam calamitatis attribueret quae omnis propter avaritiam ipsius accidisset, aut, cum ipse praedonum socius arbitraretur, aliis proditionis crimen inferret; deinde hoc quinto decimo die crimen esse natum postquam classis esset amissa.

While these things were going on, men were asking where Cleomenes was — not because anyone thought him, of whatever kind he be, worthy of punishment for that hurt; for what could Cleomenes do? — I cannot accuse anyone falsely — what, I say, could Cleomenes greatly do, with the ships emptied by this man’s greed? And they see him sit beside the praetor and whisper familiarly in his ear, as he was wont. Then surely it seemed most unworthy to all that the most honourable men, picked out of their cities, were thrown into iron and chains, while Cleomenes, on account of his partnership in disgraces and shamefulness, was the most familiar with the praetor.

cum haec ita fierent, quaerebatur ubi esset Cleomenes, non quo illum ipsum, cuicuimodi est, quisquam supplicio propter illud incommodum dignum putaret; nam quid Cleomenes facere potuit?—non enim possum quemquam insimulare falso— quid, inquam, magno opere potuit Cleomenes facere istius avaritia navibus exinanitis? atque eum vident sedere ad latus praetoris et ad aurem familiariter, ut solitus erat, insusurrare. tum vero omnibus indignissimum visum est homines honestissimos, electos e suis civitatibus, in ferrum atque in vincla coniectos, Cleomenem propter flagitiorum ac turpitudinum societatem familiarissimum esse praetori.

Yet against them is set as accuser a certain Naevius Turpio, who under Gaius Sacerdos as praetor was condemned for wrongs — a man well fitted to this man’s audacity, whom this man in matters of tithes, in capital matters, in every false charge was wont to have as runner ahead and emissary. The parents and kinsmen of the wretched young men come to Syracuse, moved by this sudden message of their calamity. They see their children bound in chains, when they were sustaining the punishment of his greed on their necks and shoulders. They are present; they defend; they cry out; they implore your faith — which was nowhere and never had been. The father Dexo of Tyndaris was present, a most noble man, your guest-friend. At whose house you had stayed, whom you had called guest-friend — when you saw him with such authority lost in misery, could not his tears, not his old age, not the right and name of guest-friendship recall you from crime to some part of humanity?

adponitur iis tamen accusator Naevius Turpio quidam, qui C. Sacerdote praetore iniuriarum damnatus est, homo bene adpositus ad istius audaciam, quem iste in decumis, in rebus capitalibus, in omni calumnia praecursorem habere solebat et emissarium. veniunt Syracusas parentes propinquique miserorum adulescentium hoc repentino calamitatis suae commoti nuntio; vinctos aspiciunt catenis liberos suos, cum istius avaritiae poenam collo et cervicibus suis sustinerent; adsunt, defendunt, proclamant, fidem tuam, quae nusquam erat neque umquam fuerat, implorant. pater aderat Dexo Tyndaritanus, homo nobilissimus, hospes tuus. cuius tu domi fueras, quem hospitem appellaras, eum cum illa auctoritate miseria videres perditum, non te eius lacrimae, non senectus, non hospiti ius atque nomen a scelere aliquam ad partem humanitatis revocare potuit?

But why do I recall the rights of guest-friendship in this monstrous beast? Who entered Sthenius of Thermae, his own guest-friend, whose house he drained and emptied through guest-friendship, in his absence among the defendants, condemned him to capital sentence with the case unheard — shall we now seek of him the rights and duties of guest-friendships? For do we have to do with a cruel man, or with a wild and monstrous beast? The tears of the father over the peril of an innocent son did not move you. Although you had left a father at home, you had a son with you: did neither your son present, by the dearness of children, nor the absent father, by the indulgence of a parent, warn you?

sed quid ego hospiti iura in hac immani belua commemoro? qui Sthenium Thermitanum, hospitem suum, cuius domum per hospitium exhausit et exinanivit, absentem in reos rettulerit, causa indicta capite damnarit, ab eo nunc hospitiorum iura atque officia quaeramus? cum homine enim crudeli nobis res est an cum fera atque immani belua? te patris lacrimae de innocentis fili periculo non movebant; cum patrem domi reliquisses, filium tecum haberes, te neque praesens filius de liberum caritate neque absens pater de indulgentia patria commonebat?

Your guest-friend Aristeus, son of Dexo, wore chains. Why so? "He had betrayed the fleet." For what reward? "He had deserted." What of Cleomenes? "He had been a coward." But you had given him a crown for his virtue. "He had discharged the sailors." But you had received from all the wage of discharging. There was on the other side another parent, Eubulides of Herbita, a man at his own home famous and noble; who, because he had hurt Cleomenes in defending his son, was almost left bare. But what was there for anyone to say or to defend? "It is not lawful to name Cleomenes." But the case demands it. "You shall die, if you call him." For he never threatened any man moderately. But there were no rowers. "Will you accuse the praetor? Break his neck." If neither the praetor nor the praetor’s rival is allowed to be named, when in these two the whole case rests, what will be?

catenas habebat hospes tuus Aristeus, Dexonis filius. quid ita? ’ prodiderat classem.’ quod ob praemium? ’ deseruerat.’ quid Cleomenes? ’ ignavus fuerat.’ at eum tu ob virtutem corona ante donaras. ’ dimiserat nautas.’ at ab omnibus tu mercedem missionis acceperas. alter parens ex altera parte erat Herbitensis Eubulida, homo domi suae clarus et nobilis; qui quia Cleomenem in defendendo filio laeserat, nudus paene est destitutus. quid erat autem quod quisquam diceret aut defenderet? ’Cleomenem nominare non licet.’ at causa cogit. ’ moriere, si appellaris’; numquam enim iste cuiquam est mediocriter minatus. at remiges non erant. ’ praetorem tu accuses? frange cervices.’ si neque praetorem neque praetoris aemulum appellari licebit, cum in his duobus tota causa sit, quid futurum est?

Heracleus of Segesta also pleads his case, a man born at his own home in a most noble place. Hear, gentlemen, as your humanity demands; for you shall hear of the great hurts and wrongs of allies. Know that Heracleus was in this case, who, on account of a serious eye disease, had then not sailed, and by the order of him who had power had remained at Syracuse on leave! He surely neither betrayed the fleet, nor, terrified by fear, fled, nor deserted the army. For then this would have to be animadverted upon, when the fleet was setting out from Syracuse. He yet was in the same case as if he had been caught in some manifest crime — he, on whom the charge could not be laid even falsely.

dicit etiam causam Heracleus Segestanus, homo domi suae nobilissimo loco natus. audite, ut vestra humanitas postulat, iudices; audietis enim de magnis incommodis iniuriisque sociorum. hunc scitote fuisse Heracleum in ea causa, qui propter gravem morbum oculorum tum non navigarit, et iussu eius qui potestatem habuit in commeatu Syracusis remanserit! is certe neque classem prodidit neque metu perterritus fugit neque exercitum deseruit; etenim tum esset hoc animadvertendum cum classis Syracusis proficiscebatur. is tamen in eadem causa fuit, quasi esset in aliquo manifesto scelere deprehensus, in quem ne falsi quidem causa conferri criminis potuit.

There was among those captains a certain Heraclean Furius (for they have not a few names of this Latin sort) — a man, as long as he lived, famous and noble not only at his own home; after his death, throughout all Sicily. In which man there was so great spirit not only that he should hurt this man freely (for that indeed, since he saw he must die, he understood he was doing without peril), but, with death set before him, when his mother sat by him weeping in the prison nights and days, he wrote a defence of his case. Which now there is no one in Sicily who does not have, who does not read, who is not reminded by that speech of your crime and cruelty. In which he shows how many sailors he had received from his city, how many and at what price he had discharged each one, how many he had had with him; he likewise speaks of the rest of the ships. Which when he was speaking before you, his eyes were beaten with rods. He, with death set before him, easily bore the body’s pain. He cried out — which he left in writing — that it was an unworthy deed that the tears of a most shameless woman over the safety of Cleomenes should have more weight with you than a mother’s over her son’s life.

fuit in illis nauarchis Heracliensis quidam Furius,—nam habent illi non nulla huiusce modi Latina nomina,—homo, quam diu vixit, non domi suae solum, post mortem tota Sicilia clarus et nobilis. in quo homine tantum animi fuit non solum ut istum libere laederet,—nam id quidem, quoniam moriundum videbat, sine periculo se facere intellegebat,—verum morte proposita, cum lacrimans in carcere mater noctes diesque adsideret, defensionem causae suae scripsit; quam nunc nemo est in Sicilia quin habeat, quin legat, quin tui sceleris et crudelitatis ex illa oratione commonefiat. in qua docet quot a civitate sua nautas acceperit, quot et quanti quemque dimiserit, quot secum habuerit; item de ceteris navibus dicit; quae cum apud te diceret, virgis oculi verberabantur. ille morte proposita facile dolorem corporis patiebatur; clamabat, id quod scriptum reliquit, facinus esse indignum plus impudicissimae mulieris apud te de Cleomenis salute quam de sua vita lacrimas matris valere.

Then I see this also was said, which (if the Roman people knows you rightly) he proclaimed of you not falsely now in death itself: that Verres could not extinguish testimony by killing witnesses; that he would be a graver witness with wise judges from the dead than if he were brought alive into court; that then he would be a witness of his greed alone, if he lived; now, when he had been so killed, he would be a witness of his crime, audacity, cruelty. Then those distinguished words: that not only crowds of witnesses, when your case was being treated, but from the divine spirits the Avengers of the innocent and the Furies of the wicked would come into your trial. That he therefore reckoned his own lot lighter, because he had already seen the edge of your axes and the face and hand of Sextius, your executioner, when, in the assize of Roman citizens, by your order Roman citizens were being struck with the axe.

deinde etiam illud video esse dictum quod, si recte vos populus Romanus cognovit, non falso ille de vobis iam in morte ipsa praedicavit, non posse Verrem testis interficiendo testimonium exstinguere; graviorem apud sapientis iudices se fore ab inferis testem quam si vivus in iudicium produceretur; tum avaritiae solum, si viveret, nunc, cum ita esset necatus, sceleris audaciae crudelitatis testem fore. iam illa praeclara: non testium modo catervas, cum tua res ageretur, sed ab dis manibus innocentium Poenas sceleratorumque Furias in tuum iudicium esse venturas; sese ideo leviorem suum casum fingere, quod iam ante aciem securium tuarum Sextique, tui carnificis, vultum et manum vidisset, cum in conventu civium Romanorum iussu tuo securi cives Romani ferirentur.

To be brief, gentlemen: of the freedom you have given to allies, this man has used in the most bitter punishment of most wretched slavery. He condemns all from the council’s opinion. Yet this man, in such a great matter of so many men, did not call to him Titus Vettius, his quaestor, by whose counsel he should use; nor Publius Cervius, such a man, his legate, who, because he had been legate in Sicily under this man as praetor, was the first man challenged by him as judge: but from the opinion of brigands — that is, of his own retinue — he condemns all.

ne multa, iudices, libertate quam vos sociis dedistis, hac ille in acerbissimo supplicio miserrimae servitutis abusus est. condemnat omnis de consili sententia; tamen neque iste in tanta re tot hominum T. Vettium ad se arcessit, quaestorem suum, cuius consilio uteretur, neque P. Cervium, talem virum, legatum, qui quia legatus isto praetore in Sicilia fuit primus ab isto iudex reiectus est, sed de latronum, hoc est de comitum suorum sententia condemnat omnis.

Here all the Sicilians, the most faithful and most ancient allies, afflicted with very many benefits from our ancestors, are gravely moved and tremble for their own perils and all their fortunes. They take it ill that that clemency and gentleness of our imperium has been turned into such great cruelty and inhumanity — that so many men are condemned at one time on no charge — that the dishonest praetor seeks the defence of his own thefts out of the most unworthy death of innocent men. To this dishonesty, frenzy, and cruelty nothing now seems able to be added, gentlemen; and rightly nothing seems so. For if he should contend with the dishonesty of others, he would far and much surpass all.

hic cuncti Siculi, fidelissimi atque antiquissimi socii, plurimis adfecti beneficiis a maioribus nostris, graviter commoventur et de suis periculis fortunisque omnibus pertimescunt: indigne ferunt illam clementiam mansuetudinemque nostri imperi in tantam crudelitatem inhumanitatemque esse conversam, condemnari tot homines uno tempore nullo crimine, defensionem suorum furtorum praetorem improbum ex indignissima morte innocentium quaerere. nihil addi iam videtur, iudices, ad hanc improbitatem amentiam crudelitatemque posse, et recte nihil videtur. nam si cum aliorum improbitate certet, longe omnis multumque superabit;

But when he himself contends with himself, he does this: that he should always overcome his earlier deed by a new crime. I had said that Phalacrus the Centuripine had been excepted by Cleomenes, because in his quadrireme Cleomenes had sailed. Yet, because the young man had become afraid (since he saw his case the same as theirs who, innocent, were perishing), Timarchides comes to him. He says there is no peril of the axe; warns him to take care lest he be flogged with rods. To be brief, you have heard the young man himself say that, on account of this fear, he counted out money to Timarchides.

sed secum cum ipse certat, id agit ut semper superius suum facinus novo scelere vincat. Phalacrum Centuripinum dixeram exceptum esse a Cleomene, quod in eius quadriremi Cleomenes vectus esset; tamen, quia pertimuerat adulescens, quod eandem suam causam videbat esse quam illorum qui innocentes peribant, accedit ad hominem Timarchides; a securi negat esse ei periculum, virgis ne caederetur monet ut caveat. ne multa, ipsum dicere adulescentem audistis se ob hunc metum pecuniam Timarchidi numerasse.

These things are light in this defendant. The captain, a most noble man of a most noble city, ransomed himself from the fear of rods at a price: it is human. Another gave money lest he be condemned: it is customary. The Roman people does not wish Verres to be accused on worn charges; it asks for new ones; it desires unheard ones. It thinks that it is not a trial of a Sicilian praetor, but of an unspeakable tyrant. The condemned are shut up in prison. Punishment is established against them; it is exacted from the wretched parents of the captains. They are forbidden to approach their sons; they are forbidden to bring food and clothing to their own children.

levia sunt haec in hoc reo. metum virgarum nauarchus, homo nobilissimus nobilissimae civitatis, pretio redemit: humanum est. Alius ne condemnaretur pecuniam dedit: usitatum est. non vult populus Romanus obsoletis criminibus accusari Verrem, nova postulat, inaudita desiderat; non de praetore Siciliae, sed de nefario tyranno fieri iudicium arbitratur. includuntur in carcerem condemnati; supplicium constituitur in illos, sumitur de miseris parentibus nauarchorum; prohibentur adire ad filios, prohibentur liberis suis cibum vestitumque ferre.

These fathers whom you see lay on the threshold; the wretched mothers spent the night at the door of the prison, shut out from the last sight of their children: who asked nothing else save that they might be allowed to take in the last breath of their sons in their mouths. There stood the keeper of the prison, the praetor’s executioner, the death and terror of allies and Roman citizens, the lictor Sextius, for whom out of every groan and grief a fixed wage was prepared. "That you may approach, you shall give so much; that food may be brought in to you, so much." No one refused. "What? That with one stroke of the axe I should bring death to your son — what will you give? That he be not long tortured, that he be not stricken oftener, that the breath be not taken away with some sense of pain?" Even on this account money was given to the lictor.

patres hi quos videtis iacebant in limine, matresque miserae pernoctabant ad ostium carceris ab extremo conspectu liberum exclusae; quae nihil aliud orabant nisi ut filiorum suorum postremum spiritum ore excipere liceret. aderat ianitor carceris, carnifex praetoris, mors terrorque sociorum et civium Romanorum, lictor Sextius, cui ex omni gemitu doloreque certa merces comparabatur. ’Vt adeas, tantum dabis, ut cibum tibi intro ferre liceat, tantum.’ nemo recusabat. ’ quid? ut uno ictu securis adferam mortem filio tuo, quid dabis? ne diu crucietur, ne saepius feriatur, ne cum sensu doloris aliquo spiritus auferatur?’ etiam ob hanc causam pecunia lictori dabatur.

O great and unbearable grief! O grave and bitter fortune! Not the lives of their children but the swiftness of their death the parents were compelled to ransom at a price. And the young men themselves were speaking with their Sextius about the blow and about that one stroke; and this last thing the children begged of their parents: that, for the sake of lightening their torture, money should be given to the lictor. Many and grave griefs were found for the parents and kinsmen, many. Yet death is the last. It will not be. Is there anything beyond to which cruelty could go? It will be found. For the bodies of those, when they have been struck with the axe and killed, will be cast to the wild beasts. If this is grievous to the parents, let them ransom at a price the power of burying.

O magnum atque intolerandum dolorem! o gravem acerbamque fortunam! non vitam liberum, sed mortis celeritatem pretio redimere cogebantur parentes. atque ipsi etiam adulescentes cum Sextio suo de plaga et de uno illo ictu loquebantur, idque postremum parentis suos liberi orabant, ut levandi cruciatus sui causa lictori pecunia daretur. multi et graves dolores inventi parentibus et propinquis, multi; verum tamen mors sit extremum. non erit. estne aliquid ultra quo crudelitas progredi possit? reperietur; nam illorum, cum erunt securi percussi ac necati, corpora feris obicientur. hoc si luctuosum est parentibus, redimant pretio sepeliendi potestatem.

Onasus of Segesta, a noble man, you have heard say that on account of the burial of the captain Heracleus he counted out money to Timarchides; lest you say, "for the fathers come angry over their lost sons" — a leading man, a most noble man, says, and does not speak about a son. Now who was at Syracuse then who has not heard, who does not know that these agreements of Timarchides about burial were made even with those still alive? Did men not openly speak with Timarchides? Were not all the kinsmen of all called in? Were not the funerals of the living openly being contracted? With all these things done and settled, they are brought out from prison; they are bound.

Onasum Segestanum, hominem nobilem, dicere audistis se ob sepulturam Heraclei nauarchi pecuniam Timarchidi numerasse; ne hoc possis dicere, ’ patres enim veniunt amissis filiis irati,’ vir primarius, homo nobilissimus, dicit, neque de filio dicit. iam hoc quis tum fuit Syracusis quin audierit, quin sciat, has Timarchidi pactiones sepulturae cum vivis etiam illis esse factas? non palam cum Timarchide loquebantur, non omnes omnium propinqui adhibebantur, non palam vivorum funera locabantur? quibus omnibus rebus actis atque decisis producuntur e carcere, deligantur.

Who was so iron at that time, so inhuman save you alone, that he was not moved by their age, nobility, misery? Was there anyone who did not weep, who did not so reckon their calamity that he yet thought their fortune not foreign, the danger common? They are struck with the axe. You rejoice in the groaning of all and triumph; you delight that the witnesses of your greed have been taken away. You erred, Verres, and you erred vehemently, when you reckoned you could wash off the stains of your thefts and disgraces with the blood of innocent allies. You were borne headlong by frenzy, you who reckoned that the wounds of greed could be healed by the remedies of cruelty. For although those men have died, witnesses of your crime, yet their kinsmen are not lacking either to you or to them; yet out of that very number of captains some live and are at hand, whom (as it seems to me) fortune has reserved for the punishment of those innocent men and for this case.

quis tam fuit illo tempore ferreus, quis tam inhumanus praeter unum te, qui non illorum aetate nobilitate miseria commoveretur? ecquis fuit quin lacrimaret, quin ita calamitatem illam putaret illorum ut fortunam tamen non alienam, periculum autem commune arbitraretur? feriuntur securi. laetaris tu in omnium gemitu et triumphas; testis avaritiae tuae gaudes esse sublatos. errabas, Verres, et vehementer errabas, cum te maculas furtorum et flagitiorum tuorum sociorum innocentium sanguine eluere arbitrabare; praeceps amentia ferebare, qui te existimares avaritiae vulnera crudelitatis remediis posse sanare. etenim quamquam illi sunt mortui sceleris tui testes, tamen eorum propinqui neque tibi neque illis desunt, tamen ex ipso illo numero nauarchorum aliqui vivunt et adsunt, quos, ut mihi videtur, ad illorum innocentium poenas fortuna et ad hanc causam reservavit.

The phylarch of Haluntium is here, who, because he did not flee with Cleomenes, was overcome by the brigands and captured. To whom calamity was salvation; who, had he not been captured by pirates, would have fallen into this brigand of the allies. He says in evidence about the discharge of the sailors, about the hunger, about the flight of Cleomenes. The Centuripine Phalacrus is here, born in a most ample city in the most ample place. He says the same; in nothing does he disagree.

adest phylarchus Haluntinus, qui quia cum Cleomene non fugit, oppressus a praedonibus et captus est; cui calamitas saluti fuit, qui nisi captus a piratis esset in hunc praedonem sociorum incidisset. dicit is pro testimonio de missione nautarum, de fame, de Cleomenis fuga. adest Centuripinus Phalacrus in amplissima civitate amplissimo loco natus; eadem dicit, nulla in re discrepat.

By the immortal gods! With what spirit, gentlemen, do you sit, or in what manner do you hear these things? Whether am I out of my senses, and grieve more than enough at so great a calamity and misery of allies; or are you also affected here by this most bitter torture and grief of innocent men with an equal sense of grief? For I, when I say a Herbitan, a Heraclean was struck with the axe, the unworthiness of the calamity turns before my eyes. Were the citizens of those peoples, the nurslings of those fields, out of which the greatest force of grain is yearly sought for the Roman commons by their works and labours — who from their parents in the hope of our imperium and of our equity were undertaken and brought up — were they kept for Gaius Verres’s unspeakable monstrousness and for his deadly axe?

per deos immortalis! quo tandem animo sedetis, iudices, aut haec quem ad modum auditis? Vtrum ego desipio et plus quam satis est doleo tanta calamitate miseriaque sociorum, an vos quoque hic acerbissimus innocentium cruciatus et maeror pari sensu doloris adficit? ego enim cum Herbitensem, cum Heracliensem securi percussum esse dico, versatur mihi ante oculos indignitas calamitatis. Eorumne populorum civis, eorum agrorum alumnos, ex quibus maxima vis frumenti quotannis plebi Romanae illorum operis ac laboribus quaeritur, qui a parentibus spe nostri imperi nostraeque aequitatis suscepti educatique sunt, ad C. Verris nefariam immanitatem et ad eius funestam securem esse servatos?

When that Tyndaritan comes into my mind, when the Segestan, then I consider together the rights and duties of cities. Those cities which Publius Africanus thought ought to be adorned with the spoils of enemies — these Gaius Verres deprived not only of those ornaments, but even of most noble men by his unspeakable crime. Lo, what the Tyndaritans willingly proclaim: "We are reckoned among the seventeen peoples of Sicily; we have always in all the Punic and Sicilian wars followed the friendship and faith of the Roman people; from us all things, both helps of war and ornaments of peace, have been ministered to the Roman people." Indeed much did these rights profit them in this man’s command and power!

cum mihi Tyndaritani illius venit in mentem, cum Segestani, tum iura simul civitatum atque officia considero. quas urbis P. Africanus etiam ornandas esse spoliis hostium arbitratus est, eas C. Verres non solum illis ornamentis sed etiam viris nobilissimis nefario scelere privavit. en quod Tyndaritani libenter praedicent: ’ nos in septemdecim populis Siciliae numeramur, nos semper omnibus Punicis Siciliensibusque bellis amicitiam fidemque populi Romani secuti sumus, a nobis omnia populo Romano semper et belli adiumenta et pacis ornamenta ministrata sunt.’ multum vero haec iis iura profuerunt in istius imperio ac potestate!

Your sailors once Scipio led against Carthage; but now an almost empty ship Cleomenes leads against brigands. With you Africanus shared the spoils of the enemy and the rewards of praise; but now, despoiled by Verres, with the ship led off by brigands, we ourselves are reckoned in the place and number of enemies. What further? That kinship of the Segestans, not only handed down in writing or recalled in words, but used and approved by their many services — what fruits of this connection did it bring in this man’s command? Of course this was the right, gentlemen: that out of the bosom of his fatherland a most noble young man was given over to this man’s executioner Sextius. To which city our ancestors granted the largest and best fields, which they wished to be free of tribute — this with you got not even this right by kinship, faithfulness, antiquity, authority: that it should plead for the death and blood of one most honourable and most innocent of its citizens.

vestros quondam nautas contra Carthaginem Scipio duxit, at nunc navem contra praedones paene inanem Cleomenes ducit; vobiscum Africanus hostium spolia et praemia laudis communicavit, at nunc, per Verrem spoliati, nave a praedonibus abducta, ipsi in hostium loco numeroque ducimini. quid vero? illa Segestanorum non solum litteris tradita neque commemorata verbis, sed multis officiis illorum usurpata et comprobata cognatio quos tandem fructus huiusce necessitudinis in istius imperio tulit? nempe hoc iure fuit, iudices, ut ex sinu patriae nobilissimus adulescens istius carnifici Sextio dederetur. cui civitati maiores nostri maximos agros atque optimos concesserunt, quam immunem esse voluerunt, haec apud te cognationis fidelitatis vetustatis auctoritatis ne hoc quidem iuris obtinuit, ut unius honestissimi atque innocentissimi civis mortem ac sanguinem deprecaretur.

Whither shall the allies flee for refuge? Whom shall they implore? Finally, by what hope, that they should wish to live, will they be held, if you abandon them? Will they come to the senate? What? That it may exact punishment on Verres? That is not customary; not senatorial. Will they flee for refuge to the Roman people? The cause of the people is easy; for the people will say that for the sake of allies it has passed the law and set its guardians and avengers in charge. This place therefore is the only one to which they may flee, this the harbour, this the citadel, this the altar of the allies. To which indeed they now flee not as before they were wont in seeking back their own things. Not silver, not gold, not clothing, not slaves do they ask back; not the ornaments which have been snatched out of cities and shrines. Inexperienced men fear lest now the Roman people grant these things and so wish them to be done. For we suffer many years now and are silent, when we see all moneys of all nations come to a few men. Which we seem the more to bear with calm mind and to grant, because none of those men pretends, no one labours that his own greed should seem hidden.

quo confugient socii? quem implorabunt? qua spe denique, ut vivere velint, tenebuntur, si vos eos deseretis? ad senatumne venient? quid? ut de Verre supplicium sumat? non est usitatum, non senatorium. ad populum Romanum confugient? facilis est populi causa; legem enim se sociorum causa iussisse et eius legis custodes ac vindices praeposuisse dicet. hic locus igitur est unus quo perfugiant, hic portus, haec arx, haec ara sociorum; quo quidem nunc non ita confugiunt ut antea in suis repetundis rebus solebant. non argentum, non aurum, non vestem, non mancipia repetunt, non ornamenta quae ex urbibus fanisque erepta sunt; metuunt homines imperiti ne iam haec populus Romanus concedat et ita velit fieri. patimur enim multos iam annos et silemus, cum videamus ad paucos homines omnis omnium nationum pecunias pervenisse. quod eo magis ferre animo aequo et concedere videmur, quia nemo istorum dissimulat, nemo laborat ut obscura sua cupiditas esse videatur.

In our most beautiful and most adorned city, what statue, what painted panel is there which has not been taken from conquered enemies and brought here? But the villas of these men are adorned and stuffed with very many and most beautiful spoils of the most faithful allies. Where do you suppose are the moneys of the foreign nations, which now all lack, when you see Athens, Pergamum, Cyzicus, Miletus, Chios, Samos, finally all Asia, Achaia, Greece, Sicily shut up in so few villas? But these things, as I say, your allies now leave aside and neglect, gentlemen. Lest they be despoiled publicly by the Roman people, they have provided by their services and faith. To the greed of a few they could yet, when they could not resist, in some way furnish. But now the means not only of resisting but even of furnishing has been taken away. So they leave aside their own affairs; they do not seek back the moneys — by which name this trial is called; they leave them off. In this dress now they flee for refuge to you.

in urbe nostra pulcherrima atque ornatissima quod signum, quae tabula picta est quae non ab hostibus victis capta atque deportata sit? at istorum villae sociorum fidelissimorum plurimis et pulcherrimis spoliis ornatae refertaeque sunt. Vbi pecunias exterarum nationum esse arbitramini, quae nunc omnes egent, cum Athenas, Pergamum, Cyzicum, Miletum, Chium, Samum. totam denique Asiam, Achaiam, Graeciam, Siciliam tam in paucis villis inclusas esse videatis? sed haec, ut dico, omnia iam socii vestri relinquunt et neglegunt, iudices. ne publice a populo Romano spoliarentur officiis ac fide providerunt; paucorum cupiditati tum, cum obsistere non poterant, tamen sufficere aliquo modo poterant; nunc vero iam adempta est non modo resistendi verum etiam suppeditandi facultas. itaque res suas neglegunt; pecunias, quo nomine iudicium hoc appellatur, non repetunt, relinquunt; hoc iam ornatu ad vos confugiunt.

Look, gentlemen, look on the squalor and filth of the allies! Sthenius of Thermae here, with this hair and this dress, with his whole house plundered, makes no mention of your thefts; he asks only himself back from you, nothing more. For wholly by your lust and crime you took him from his fatherland, in which by his many virtues and services he was the chief. Dexo here, whom you see, asks not what publicly at Tyndaris, not what privately you snatched from him, but, wretched, his only son, the best and most innocent, you he begs to give back. He wishes to bring home some comfort to the ashes and bones of his son not from the assessed suits of you for money, but from your calamity. This Eubulides, so old, has now in his exhausted age undertaken so much labour and journey, not that he might recover any of his goods, but that, with the same eyes with which he had seen the bloody neck of his son, he might see you condemned.

aspicite, aspicite, iudices, squalorem sordisque sociorum! Sthenius hic Thermitanus cum hoc capillo atque veste, domo sua tota expilata, mentionem tuorum furtorum non facit; sese ipsum abs te repetit, nihil amplius; totum enim tua libidine et scelere ex sua patria, in qua multis virtutibus ac beneficiis princeps fuit, sustulisti. Dexo hic, quem videtis, non quae publice Tyndaride, non quae privatim sibi eripuisti, sed unicum miser abs te filium optimum atque innocentissimum flagitat; non ex litibus aestimatis tuis pecuniam domum, sed ex tua calamitate cineri atque ossibus fili sui solacium vult aliquod reportare. hic tam grandis natu Eubulida hoc tantum exacta aetate laboris itinerisque suscepit, non ut aliquid de suis bonis recuperaret, sed ut, quibus oculis cruentas cervices fili sui viderat, isdem te condemnatum videret.

If by Lucius Metellus it had been allowed, gentlemen, the mothers of those wretched men and their sisters were coming. One of whom, when I was approaching Heraclea by night, with all the matrons of that state and with many torches met me. And so — calling me her safety, naming you her executioner, imploring her son’s name — the wretched woman lay at my feet as if I could rouse her son from the dead. Likewise in the rest of the cities the mothers in advanced age and likewise the small children of the wretched did. Of whom each age called for my labour and industry, your faith and pity.

si per L. Metellum licitum esset, iudices, matres illorum miserorum sororesque veniebant; quarum una, cum ego ad Heracleam noctu accederem, cum omnibus matronis eius civitatis et cum multis facibus mihi obviam venit, et ita,—me suam salutem appellans, te suum carnificem nominans, fili nomen implorans, —mihi ad pedes misera iacuit quasi ego eius excitare ab inferis filium possem. faciebant hoc itidem ceteris in civitatibus grandes natu matres et item parvi liberi miserorum; quorum utrumque aetas laborem et industriam meam, fidem et misericordiam vestram requirebat.

So Sicily, gentlemen, has brought to me this complaint above the rest. By tears, not by glory, I have come to this work; that false condemnation, that prison, chains, floggings, axes, the tortures of allies, the blood of the innocent, finally even the bloodless bodies of the dead, the grief of parents and kinsmen, may not be a source of gain to our magistrates. If by your faith and truth, gentlemen, I drive away this fear of Sicily by the condemnation of this man, I shall reckon that enough has been done for my duty, enough for the will of those who have asked this of me.

itaque ad me, iudices, hanc querimoniam praeter ceteras Sicilia detulit; lacrimis ego huc, non gloria inductus accessi, ne falsa damnatio, ne carcer, ne catenae, ne verbera, ne secures, ne cruciatus sociorum, ne sanguis innocentium, ne denique etiam exsanguia corpora mortuorum, ne maeror parentum ac propinquorum magistratibus nostris quaestui posset esse. hunc ego si metum Siciliae damnatione istius per vestram fidem et veritatem deiecero, iudices, satis officio meo, satis illorum voluntati qui a me hoc petiverunt factum esse arbitrabor.

Wherefore if perhaps you find anyone who tries to defend this naval charge, let him so defend that he leaves aside those common things which have nothing to do with the case — that I am ascribing fortune to fault, that I am giving calamity for charge, that I am throwing at him the loss of the fleet, when many brave men in the common and uncertain peril of war have often been struck both on land and at sea. I throw no fortune at you. There is nothing for you to bring forth as the less commodiously managed affairs of the rest. There is nothing for you to gather of fortune the shipwrecks of many. I say the ships were empty; the rowers and sailors discharged; the rest had lived on roots of palms; that a Sicilian was in command of the fleet of the Roman people, a Syracusan over allies and friends always. I say that you, at that very time and in all the days before, were carousing on the shore with little women. I produce the authorities and witnesses of all these things.

quapropter si quem forte inveneris qui hoc navale crimen conetur defendere, is ita defendat ut illa communia quae ad causam nihil pertinent praetermittat, me culpae fortunam adsignare, calamitatem crimini dare, me amissionem classis obicere, cum multi viri fortes in communi incertoque periculo belli et terra et mari saepe offenderint. nullam tibi obicio fortunam, nihil est quod ceterorum res minus commode gestas proferas, nihil est quod multorum naufragia fortunae colligas. ego navis inanis fuisse dico, remiges nautasque dimissos, reliquos stirpibus vixisse palmarum; praefuisse classi populi Romani Siculum, perpetuo sociis atque amicis Syracusanum; te illo tempore ipso superioribusque diebus omnibus in litore cum mulierculis perpotasse dico; harum rerum omnium auctores testisque produco.

Do I seem to insult fortune in calamity, do I seem to cut off Mars’s refuges? But if it is their fortunes, do I seem to throw the chances of war at you or to reproach? Although those who have committed themselves to fortune, who have been at large in her perils and her variety, are wont not to wish fortune thrown at them. But of this calamity of yours fortune was not partner; for men are wont to try the fortune of war in battles, not in banquets. But in that calamity we can say there was not Mars in common, but Venus. Fortune ought not to be thrown at you. Why did you not give to the fortune of the innocent any pardon and place?

num tibi insultare in calamitate, num intercludere perfugia Martem quodsi illorum fortunae, num casus bellicos exprobrare aut obicere videor? tametsi solent ii fortunam sibi obici nolle qui se fortunae commiserunt, qui in eius periculis sunt ac varietate versati. istius quidem calamitatis tuae fortuna particeps non fuit. homines enim in proeliis, non in conviviis belli fortunam periclitari solent; in illa autem calamitate non fuisse communem, sed venerem possumus dicere. fortunam tibi obici non oportet, cur tu fortunae innocentium veniam ac locum non dedisti?

You may also cut off this — that, because you exacted punishment by the custom of our ancestors and struck with the axe, therefore you are called by me into charge and odium. My charge does not turn on the punishment. I do not deny that any man ought to be struck with the axe. I do not say that fear in the military art, that the strictness of imperium, that the punishment of disgrace ought to be taken away. I confess that not only against allies but even against our citizens and soldiers very often it has been animadverted strictly and vehemently. So this also you may pass over. I show that the fault was not in the captains but in you; I prove that you discharged the rowers and soldiers for a price. This the rest of the captains say; this the allied state of the Netini publicly says; this the Amestratini, this the Herbitenses, this the Hennenses, the Agyrines, the Tyndaritans publicly say. Finally your witness, your general, your rival, your guest-friend Cleomenes says this: that he had gone out onto the land that he might gather soldiers from the land guard at Pachynus and place them in the ships. Which surely he would not have done, if the ships had had their proper number; for the manner of equipped and adorned ships is such that not only could not more, but not even single men, come on board.

etiam illud praecidas licet, te, quod supplicium more maiorum sumpseris securique percusseris, idcirco a me in crimen et in invidiam vocari. non in supplicio crimen meum vertitur; non ego nego securi quemquam feriri debere, non ego metum ex re militari, non severitatem imperi, non poenam flagiti tolli dico oportere; fateor non modo in socios sed etiam in civis militesque nostros persaepe esse severe ac vehementer vindicatum. quare haec quoque praetermittas licet. ego culpam non in nauarchis sed in te fuisse demonstro, te pretio remiges militesque dimisisse arguo. hoc nauarchi reliqui dicunt, hoc Netinorum foederata civitas publice dicit, hoc Amestratini, hoc Herbitenses, hoc Hennenses, Agyrinenses, Tyndaritani publice dicunt, tuus denique testis, tuus imperator, tuus aemulus, tuus hospes Cleomenes hoc dicit, sese in terram esse egressum ut Pachyno e terrestri praesidio milites colligeret, quos in navibus conlocaret; quod certe non fecisset si suum numerum naves haberent; ea est enim ratio instructarum ornatarumque navium ut non modo plures sed ne singuli quidem possint accedere.

I say besides that those very rest of the sailors had been worn out and ruined by hunger and want of all things; I say either that all were free from fault, or, if fault must be ascribed to one, that in him was the most who held the best ship, the most sailors, the highest command; or, if all had been at fault, that Cleomenes ought not to have been set up as spectator of their death and torture. I say even that, in the very punishment, it was unspeakable that there should be set a wage of tears, a wage of the wound and stroke, a wage of the funeral and burial.

dico practerea illos ipsos reliquos nautas fame atque inopia rerum omnium confectos fuisse ae perditos; dico aut omnis extra culpam fuisse, aut, si uni attribuenda culpa sit, in eo maximam fuisse qui optimam navem, plurimos nautas haberet, summum imperium obtineret, aut, si omnes in culpa fuerint, non oportuisse Cleomenen constitui spectatorem illorum mortis atque cruciatus; dico etiam in ipso supplicio mercedem lacrimarum, mercedem vulneris atque plagae, mercedem funeris ac sepulturae constitui nefas fuisse.

Wherefore if you should wish to answer me, say this: that the fleet was equipped and adorned, that no marine was lacking, that no oar was drawn empty, that the grain administration was supplied; that the captains lie, that so many such grave cities lie, that even all Sicily lies; that you have been betrayed by Cleomenes, who said he had gone out onto the land that he might lead off soldiers from Pachynus; that spirit, not forces, was lacking to them; that Cleomenes, fighting most fiercely, was left and abandoned by them; that no coin was given to anyone for burial. If you say this, you will be caught. But if you say other things, you will not refute what has been said by me.

quapropter si mihi respondere voles haec dicito, classem instructam atque ornatam fuisse, nullum propugnatorem afuisse, nullum vacuum tractum esse remum, rem frumentariam esse suppeditatam; mentiri nauarchos, mentiri tot tam gravis civitates, mentiri etiam Siciliam totam; proditum esse te a Cleomene, qui se dixerit exisse in terram ut Pachyno deduceret milites; animum illis, non copias defuisse; Cleomenem acerrime pugnantem ab iis relictum esse atque desertum; nummum ob sepulturam datum nemini. quae si dices, tenebere; sin alia dices, ea quae a me dicta sunt non refutabis.

Here will you yet dare to say, "There is in the judges that familiar of mine, there is that paternal friend"? Just as each is most one with whom you have anything, are you not in such a charge most ashamed before him? "He is a paternal friend." If your father himself were judging — by the immortal gods — what could he do? When he should say to you these things: "You, in a province of the Roman people, as praetor, when you had to administer a maritime war, remitted the Mamertines for three years the ship which by treaty they owed; you had built among them publicly the largest private cargo-ship at public cost; you raked together moneys from the cities under the name of fleet; you discharged the rowers at a price; you, when a ship was captured by the quaestor and the legate from the brigands, removed the chief pirate from the eyes of all; you struck with the axe those who were said to be Roman citizens, who were recognized by many; you led the pirates off to your own house; you dared in court to bring forth the chief pirate from your home;

hic tu etiam dicere audebis, ’ est in iudicibus ille familiaris meus, est paternus amicus ille.’ non ut quisque maxime est quicum tibi aliquid sit, ita te in huiusce modi crimine maxime eius pudet? ’ paternus amicus est.’ ipse pater si iudicaret, per deos immortalis, quid facere posset? cum tibi haec diceret, ’ tu in provincia populi Romani praetor, cum tibi maritimum bellum esset administrandum, Mamertinis ex foedere quam deberent navem per triennium remisisti, tibi apud eosdem privata navis oneraria maxima publice est aedificata, tu a civitatibus pecunias classis nomine coegisti, tu pretio remiges dimisisti, tu, navis cum esset ab quaestore et ab legato capta praedonum, archipiratam ab oculis omnium removisti, tu, qui cives Romani esse dicerentur, qui a multis cognoscerentur, securi ferire potuisti, tu tuam domum piratas abducere, tu in iudicium archipiratam domo producere ausus es,

you, in a province so splendid, you, among the most faithful allies, the most honourable Roman citizens, in the fear and peril of the province, lay continuously for many days on the shore at banquets; through those days no one could find you at your house, no one could see you in the forum; you brought the matrons of the allies and friends to those banquets; you placed your praetexta-clad son, my grandson, among such women, that the life of the parent might offer examples of wickedness to that age most slippery and uncertain; you, as praetor in the province, were seen in a tunic and a purple cloak; you, on account of your love and lust, took the command of the ships from the Roman people’s legate and gave it to a Syracusan; your soldiers in the province of Sicily lacked fruits and grain; by your luxury and greed the fleet of the Roman people was captured and burned by brigands;

tu in provincia tam splendida, tu apud socios fidelissimos, civis Romanos honestissimos, in metu periculoque provinciae dies continuos compluris in litore conviviisque iacuisti, te per eos dies nemo tuae domi convenire, nemo in foro videre potuit, tu sociorum atque amicorum ad ea convivia matres familias adhibuisti, tu inter eius modi mulieres praetextatum tuum filium, nepotem meum, conlocavisti, ut aetati maxime lubricae atque incertae exempla nequitiae parentis vita praeberet, tu praetor in provincia cum tunica pallioque purpureo visus es, tu propter amorem libidinemque tuam imperium navium legato populi Romani ademisti, Syracusano tradidisti, tui milites in provincia Sicilia frugibus frumentoque caruerunt, tua luxurie atque avaritia classis populi Romani a praedonibus capta et incensa est;

since Syracuse was founded, the harbour into which no enemy had ever entered — in it under you as praetor for the first time pirates sailed; nor did you wish to cover all these so many great disgraces by your pretence or by men’s forgetfulness and silence, but you also dragged the prefects of the ships, without any cause, from the embraces of their parents, your guest-friends, to death and torture. Nor did the recollection of my name in the mourning and tears of the parents soften you. The blood of innocent men was for you not only a pleasure but even a gain!" — if your father were saying these things to you, could you ask his pardon, could you ask him to forgive you?

post Syracusas conditas quem in portum numquam hostis accesserat, in eo te praetore primum piratae navigaverunt; neque haec tot et tanta dedecora dissimulatione tua neque oblivione hominum ac taciturnitate tegere voluisti, sed etiam navium praefectos sine ulla causa de complexu parentum suorum, hospitum tuorum, ad mortem cruciatumque rapuisti, neque te in parentum luctu atque lacrimis mei nominis commemoratio mitigavit; tibi hominum innocentium sanguis non modo voluptati sed etiam quaestui fuit!’ —haec si tibi tuus parens diceret, posses ab eo veniam petere, posses ut tibi ignosceret postulare?

Enough has been done for the Sicilians, enough for duty and connection, enough for our promise and our undertaking. The remaining cause, gentlemen, is that one which is not now received but inborn, not brought to me but deeply fixed and set in my mind and feeling. Which has to do not with the safety of the allies, but with that of Roman citizens — that is, with the life and blood of each one of us. In which do not, gentlemen, await proofs from me as if anything were doubtful: all I shall say will be so clear that to prove them I could call all Sicily as witness. For a kind of frenzy, the companion of crime and audacity, has so pressed his unbridled mind and his harsh nature with such senselessness that he never hesitated, in an open assembly, to bring forth against Roman citizens those punishments which are established for slaves convicted of crime.

satis est factum Siculis, satis officio ac necessitudini, satis promisso nostro ac recepto. reliqua est ea causa, iudices, quae iam non recepta sed innata, neque delata ad me sed in animo sensuque meo penitus adfixa atque insita est; quae non ad sociorum salutem, sed ad civium Romanorum, hoc est ad unius cuiusque nostrum, vitam et sanguinem pertinet. in qua nolite a me, quasi dubium sit aliquid, argumenta, iudices, exspectare: omnia quae dicam sic erunt inlustria ut ad ea probanda totam Siciliam testem adhibere possem. furor enim quidam, sceleris et audaciae comes, istius effrenatum animum importunamque naturam tanta oppressit amentia ut numquam dubitaret in conventu palam supplicia, quae in convictos malefici servos constituta sunt, ea in civis Romanos expromere.

How many he flogged with rods — why should I recall? Only this most briefly, gentlemen, I say: there was no distinction at all of citizenship under this praetor in this kind. So now by custom against the bodies of Roman citizens, even without his nod, the very hand of the lictor was carried. Can you deny this, Verres: that in the forum at Lilybaeum in the largest assize Gaius Servilius, a Roman citizen of the Panhormitan assize, an old businessman, before the tribunal at your feet was struck to the ground by rods and floggings? Dare to deny this first, if you can. There was no man at Lilybaeum who did not see; no man in Sicily who did not hear. I say a Roman citizen, worn out by blows from your lictors, fell before your eyes.

virgis quam multos ceciderit quid ego commemorem? tantum brevissime, iudices, dico: nullum fuit omnino civitatis isto praetore in hoc genere discrimen. itaque iam consuetudine ad corpora civium Romanorum etiam sine istius nutu ferebatur manus ipsa lictoris. num potes hoc negare, Verres, in foro Lilybaei maximo conventu C. Servilium, civem Romanum e conventu Panhormitano, veterem negotiatorem, ad tribunal ante pedes tuos ad terram virgis et verberibus abiectum? aude hoc primum negare, si potes; nemo Lilybaei fuit quin viderit, nemo in Sicilia quin audiverit. plagis confectum dico a lictoribus tuis civem Romanum ante oculos tuos concidisse.

But for what cause, immortal gods! Although I do wrong to the common cause and the right of citizenship; for as if there could be any cause why this should rightly happen to any Roman citizen, so I ask what was the cause in Servilius. Forgive me in this one matter, gentlemen; for in the rest I shall not greatly look for causes. He had spoken somewhat freely about this man’s wickedness and dishonesty. As soon as it was reported to him, he ordered the man to give bail to a Venusian slave to come to Lilybaeum. He gives bail; he comes to Lilybaeum. He began to compel him — when no one was bringing a charge, no one demanding it — to enter into a sponsion of one thousand sesterces with his lictor: unless he were not making gain by his thefts. He said he would give recoverers from his own staff. Servilius both refused and pleaded that, before unjust judges and with no adversary, a capital trial should not be set up against him.

at quam ob causam, di immortales! tametsi iniuriam facio communi causae et iuri civitatis; quasi enim ulla possit esse causa cur hoc cuiquam civi Romano iure accidat, ita quaero quae in Servilio causa fuerit. ignoscite in hoc uno, iudices; in ceteris enim non magnopere causas requiram. locutus erat liberius de istius improbitate atque nequitia. quod isti simul ac renuntiatum est, hominem iubet Lilybaeum vadimonium Venerio servo promittere. promittit; Lilybaeum venitur. cogere eum coepit, cum ageret nemo, nemo postularet, sponsionem mille nummum facere cum lictore suo, ’ ni furtis quaestum faceret.’ recuperatores se de cohorte sua dicebat daturum. Servilius et recusare et deprecari ne iniquis iudicibus nullo adversario iudicium capitis in se constitueretur.

While he was speaking these very things, six lictors stand round him — most strong and most practised in beating and flogging men. They cut him most fiercely with rods. Finally the nearest lictor (of whom I have often before spoken), Sextius, with his rod turned around, began most vehemently to thrust at the wretched man’s eyes. So he, when blood had filled his face and eyes, fell. They none the less, while he lay, were thrusting at his sides, that at last he might say he gave the bail. So affected, then taken up there as if dead, very shortly afterwards he died. But that man of Venus, overflowing with every charm and grace, out of his goods set up a silver Cupid in the temple of Venus. So even the fortunes of men he was abusing for the night-vows of his lusts.

haec cum maxime loqueretur, sex lictores circumsistunt valentissimi et ad pulsandos verberandosque homines exercitatissimi, caedunt acerrime virgis; denique proximus lictor, de quo iam saepe dixi, Sextius, converso baculo oculos misero tundere vehementissime coepit. itaque ille, cum sanguis os oculosque complesset, concidit, cum illi nihilo minus iacenti latera tunderent, ut aliquando spondere se diceret. sic ille adfectus illim tum pro mortuo sublatus perbrevi postea est mortuus. iste autem homo Venerius, adfluens omni lepore ac venustate, de bonis illius in aede Veneris argenteum Cupidinem posuit. sic etiam fortunis hominum abutebatur ad nocturna vota cupiditatum suarum.

For why should I speak of the rest of the punishments of Roman citizens one by one rather than as a class and altogether? That prison which was made by the most cruel tyrant Dionysius at Syracuse, which is called the stone-quarries, in his command was the home of Roman citizens. As each had hurt his mind or eyes, he was at once thrown into the stone-quarries. I see that this seems unworthy to all, gentlemen; and that I knew already in the previous hearing, when the witnesses were saying these things. For you think that the rights of liberty ought to be kept not only here, where there are tribunes of the plebs, where there are the rest of the magistrates, where the forum is full of trials, where the authority of the senate is, where the standing of the Roman people and the throng are; but you decide that wherever in the lands and among the nations the right of Roman citizens is violated, that has to do with the common cause of liberty and dignity.

nam quid ego de ceteris civium Romanorum suppliciis singillatim potius quam generatim atque universe loquar? carcer ille qui est a crudelissimo tyranno Dionysio factus Syracusis, quae lautumiae vocantur, in istius imperio domicilium civium Romanorum fuit. Vt quisque istius animum aut oculos offenderat, in lautumias statim coniciebatur. indignum hoc video videri omnibus, iudices, et id iam priore actione, cum haec testes dicerent, intellexi. retineri enim putatis oportere iura libertatis non modo hic ubi tribuni plebis sunt, ubi ceteri magistratus, ubi forum plenum iudiciorum, ubi senatus auctoritas, ubi existimatio populi Romani et frequentia, sed ubicumque terrarum et gentium violatum ius civium Romanorum sit, statuitis id pertinere ad communem causam libertatis et dignitatis.

Did you dare to shut up so great a number of Roman citizens in the prisons of foreign evildoers and criminals, of brigands and enemies? Never did the trial come into your mind, never the public meeting, never this such great throng which now looks upon you with the most unjust and most hostile spirit? Never did the dignity of the absent Roman people, never the very sight of this multitude move before your eyes and mind? You never thought you would return into the sight of these men, never come into the forum of the Roman people, never fall under the power of the laws and the courts?

in externorum hominum maleficorum sceleratorumque, in praedonum hostiumque custodias tu tantum numerum civium Romanorum includere ausus es? numquamne tibi iudici, numquam contionis, numquam huius tantae frequentiae, quae nunc te animo iniquissimo infestissimoque intuetur, venit in mentem? numquam tibi populi Romani absentis dignitas, numquam species ipsa huiusce multitudinis in oculis animoque versata est? numquam te in horum conspectum rediturum, numquam in forum populi Romani venturum, numquam sub legum et iudiciorum potestatem casurum esse duxisti?

But what was that lust of exercising cruelty, what cause of taking up so many crimes? None, gentlemen, save a new and singular method of plunder. For as those whom we have received from the poets, who are said to have set themselves at certain maritime bays, or to have held certain promontories or jutting rocks, that they might kill those who were brought there by their ships — so this man, hostile to all the seas, hung over from all parts of Sicily. Whatever ship had come from Asia, what from Syria, what from Tyre, what from Alexandria, was at once held by sure informers and watchmen. All the passengers were thrown into the stone-quarries; their cargoes and goods were carried to the praetor’s house. There was at large in Sicily, after a long interval, a second — not that Dionysius nor Phalaris (for that island once bore many cruel tyrants) — but a kind of new monster, out of that old monstrousness which is said to have been at large in those same places.

at quae erat ista libido crudelitatis exercendae, quae tot scelerum suscipiendorum causa? nulla, iudices, praeter praedandi novam singularemque rationem. nam ut illi quos a poetis accepimus, qui sinus quosdam obsedisse maritimos aut aliqua promunturia aut praerupta saxa tenuisse dicuntur, ut eos qui essent adpulsi navigiis interficere possent, sic iste in omnia maria infestus ex omnibus Siciliae partibus imminebat. quaecumque navis ex Asia, quae ex Syria, quae Tyro, quae Alexandria venerat, statim certis indicibus et custodibus tenebatur; vectores omnes in lautumias coniciebantur, onera atque merces in praetoriam domum deferebantur. versabatur in Sicilia longo intervallo alter non Dionysius ille nec Phalaris,—tulit enim illa quondam insula multos et crudelis tyrannos,—sed quoddam novum monstrum ex vetere illa immanitate quae in isdem locis versata esse dicitur.

For I do not think that Charybdis or Scylla was so hostile to sailors as this man was in the same strait. He was even the more hostile, because he had girt himself with many more and more monstrous dogs — a second Cyclops, much fiercer; for this man besieged the whole island, while the other is said to have held only Aetna and that part of Sicily. But what cause was then offered by him, gentlemen, of this so unspeakable cruelty? The same which now will be brought forward in defence. Whoever had come up to Sicily a little fuller, them he was saying were Sertorian soldiers and were fleeing from Dianium. They, to plead off the danger, brought forth: some Tyrian purple; others incense and perfumes and linen clothing; others gems and pearls; some Greek wines and Asiatic slaves for sale — so that one could understand from the wares from what places they were sailing. They had not foreseen that those very things were causes of peril for them, by which proofs they reckoned they were using to safety. For this man was saying that they had got these things out of partnership with pirates. He was ordering them to be led to the stone-quarries. He saw to it that their ships and cargoes were diligently kept.

non enim Charybdim tam infestam neque Scyllam nautis quam istum in eodem freto fuisse arbitror; hoc etiam iste infestior, quod multo se pluribus et immanioribus canibus succinxerat, Cyclops alter multo importunior; hic enim totam insulam obsidebat, ille Aetnam solam et eam Siciliae partem tenuisse dicitur. at quae causa tum subiciebatur ab ipso, iudices, huius tam nefariae crudelitatis? eadem quae nunc in defensione commemorabitur. quicumque accesserant ad Siciliam paulo pleniores, eos Sertorianos milites esse atque a Dianio fugere dicebat. illi ad deprecandum periculum proferebant alii purpuram Tyriam, tus alii atque odores vestemque linteam, gemmas alii et margaritas, vina non nulli Graeca venalisque Asiaticos, ut intellegeretur ex mercibus quibus ex locis navigarent. non providerant eas ipsas sibi causas esse periculi, quibus argumentis se ad salutem uti arbitrabantur. iste enim haec eos ex piratarum societate adeptos esse dicebat; ipsos in lautumias abduci imperabat, navis eorum atque onera diligenter adservanda curabat.

With these institutions, when the prison was now full of merchants, then those things were happening which you have heard L. Suettius, a Roman knight, a most choice man, say, and which you shall hear from the rest. Necks were being broken in the prison most unworthily of Roman citizens, so that now that voice and that imploring, "I am a Roman citizen" — which often in many of the most distant lands has brought help and safety among barbarians — brought to them a more bitter death and a quicker punishment. What is it, Verres? What do you think to answer to these things? That I am lying, that I am feigning anything, that I am swelling the charge? Do you dare to say any of these things to those defenders of yours? Give me, please, from his own bosom the records of the Syracusans, which he himself thinks were drawn up at his own discretion. Give me the prison register, which is most diligently drawn up: on what day each was given into custody, on what he died, on what he was killed. Records of the Syracusans.

his institutis cum completus iam mercatorum carcer esset, tum illa fiebant quae L. Suettium, equitem Romanum, lectissimum virum, dicere audistis, et quae ceteros audietis. cervices in carcere frangebantur indignissime civium Romanorum, ut iam illa vox et imploratio, ’ civis Romanus sum,’ quae saepe multis in ultimis terris opem inter barbaros et salutem tulit, ea mortem illis acerbiorem et supplicium maturius ferret. quid est, Verres? quid ad haec cogitas respondere? num mentiri me, num fingere aliquid, num augere crimen? num quid horum dicere istis defensoribus tuis audes? cedo mihi, quaeso, ex ipsius sinu litteras Syracusanorum, quas ipse ad arbitrium suum confectas esse arbitratur, cedo rationem carceris, quae diligentissime conficitur, quo quisque die datus in custodiam, quo mortuus, quo necatus sit. LITTERAE SYRACVSANORVM.

You see Roman citizens thrown by herds into the stone-quarries; you see in a most unworthy place the heaped-up multitude of your citizens. Now look for traces by which their exit from that place might appear. There are none. Did all die? If he could so defend, yet credit would not be given to that defence. But there stands written in those same records what this barbarous and dissolute man could neither attend to nor understand: edikaiothesan, he says — that is, as the Sicilians speak, "they were punished and killed."

videtis civis Romanos gregatim coniectos in lautumias, videtis indignissimo in loco coacervatam multitudinem vestrorum civium. quaerite nunc vestigia quibus exitus eorum ex illo loco compareant. nulla sunt. omnesne mortui? si ita posset defendere, tamen fides huic defensioni non haberetur. sed scriptum exstat in isdem litteris quod iste homo barbarus ac dissolutus neque attendere umquam neque intellegere potuit: e)dikaiw/qhsan, inquit, hoc est, ut Siculi loquuntur, supplicio adfecti ac necati sunt.

If some king, if any state of the foreign nations, if any nation had done such a thing against Roman citizens, would we not avenge it publicly, would we not pursue it by war? Could we let go this wrong and ignominy of the Roman name unavenged and unpunished? How many wars and how great do you think our ancestors took up, because Roman citizens were said to have been afflicted with wrong, because shippers had been held back, because merchants had been despoiled? But I do not now complain of those held back; despoiled, I think, must be borne. With ships, slaves, goods taken away, I prove that merchants were thrown into chains and that in the chains Roman citizens were killed.

si qui rex, si qua civitas exterarum gentium, si qua natio fecisset aliquid in civis Romanos eius modi, nonne publice vindicaremus, nonne bello persequeremur? possemus hanc iniuriam ignominiamque nominis Romani inultam impunitamque dimittere? quot bella maiores nostros et quanta suscepisse arbitramini, quod cives Romani iniuria adfecti, quod navicularii retenti, quod mercatores spoliati dicerentur? at ego iam retentos non queror, spoliatos ferendum puto; navibus, mancipiis, mercibus ademptis in vincla mercatores esse coniectos et in vinclis civis Romanos necatos esse arguo.

If I were saying these things among Scythians — not here in such a great multitude of Roman citizens, not before senators, the most choice of the state, not in the forum of the Roman people about so many and so bitter punishments of Roman citizens — yet I should move even the spirits of barbarian men. For so great is the amplitude of this empire, so great the dignity of the Roman name among all nations, that this cruelty against our people seems to be granted to no one. Now shall I think you have any safety, any refuge, when I see you entangled in the strictness of the judges, hemmed in by the throng of the Roman people?

si haec apud Scythas dicerem, non hic in tanta multitudine civium Romanorum, non apud senatores, lectissimos civitatis, non in foro populi Romani de tot et tam acerbis suppliciis civium Romanorum, tamen animos etiam barbarorum hominum permoverem; tanta enim huius imperi amplitudo, tanta nominis Romani dignitas est apud omnis nationes ut ista in nostros homines crudelitas nemini concessa esse videatur. nunc tibi ego ullam salutem, ullum perfugium putem, cum te implicatum severitate iudicum, circumretitum frequentia populi Romani esse videam?

If, by Hercules, what I see cannot happen — if you should slip out of these snares and disentangle yourself by some way and reasoning — you must fall into those greater nets, in which you must necessarily be finished and cut to pieces by the same me from a higher place. To whom even if I should wish to grant what he defends, yet that very false defence ought to be no less ruinous to him than my true accusation. For what does he defend? He says that he caught those fleeing from Spain and inflicted punishment on them. Who allowed you this? By what right did you do it? Who has done the same? How was it lawful for you to do it?

si mehercule, id quod fieri non posse intellego, ex his te laqueis exueris ac te aliqua via ac ratione explicaris, in illas tibi maiores plagas incidendum est in quibus te ab eodem me superiore ex loco confici et concidi necesse est. cui si etiam id quod defendit velim concedere, tamen ipsa illa falsa defensio non minus esse ei perniciosa quam mea vera accusatio debeat. quid enim defendit? ex Hispania fugientis se excepisse et supplicio adfecisse dicit. quis tibi id permisit? quo iure fecisti? quis idem fecit? qui tibi id facere licuit?

We see the forum and the basilicas full of those men, and we see them with calm mind. For not troublesome is that outcome of civil dissension and (whether of frenzy or of fate or of calamity) in which at least it is allowed to keep the rest of the citizens unhurt. Verres, that old betrayer of his consul, transferrer of his quaestorship, diverter of public money, took on himself such authority in the commonwealth that to those men whom by the senate, by the Roman people, by all the magistrates it was lawful to be at large in the forum, in voting, in this city, in the commonwealth — to all those he was setting forth a bitter and cruel death, if fortune should bring them to any part of Sicily.

forum plenum et basilicas istorum hominum videmus, et animo aequo videmus; civilis enim dissensionis et seu amentiae seu fati seu calamitatis non est iste molestus exitus, in quo reliquos saltem civis incolumis licet conservare. Verres, ille vetus proditor consulis, translator quaesturae, aversor pecuniae publicae, tantum sibi auctoritatis in re publica suscepit ut, quibus hominibus per senatum, per populum Romanum, per omnis magistratus, in foro, in suffragiis, in hac urbe, in re publica versari liceret, iis omnibus mortem acerbam crudelemque proponeret si fortuna eos ad aliquam partem Siciliae detulisset.

To Gnaeus Pompeius, that most distinguished and most brave man, very many of those Sertorian soldiers fled for refuge after Perperna had been killed. Whom did he not with the highest zeal keep safe and unhurt? To what citizen as suppliant did that unconquered right hand not stretch out faith and show the hope of safety? Indeed? Those who had a haven with him against whom they had borne arms — for them with you, who never had any weight in the commonwealth, was death and torture set up? See how convenient a defence you have devised! By Hercules I prefer that what you defend should be approved by these judges and the Roman people rather than what I charge. I prefer, I say, that you should be reckoned hostile and dangerous to that kind of men, rather than to merchants and shippers. For my charge convicts you of excessive greed; your defence convicts you of a kind of frenzy and monstrousness and unheard cruelty and almost a new proscription.

ad Cn. Pompeium, clarissimum virum et fortissimum, permulti occiso Perperna ex illo Sertoriano numero militum confugerunt. quem non ille summo cum studio salvum incolumemque servavit? cui civi supplicanti non illa dextera invicta fidem porrexit et spem salutis ostendit? itane vero? quibus fuit portus apud eum quem contra arma tulerant, iis apud te, cuius nullum in re publica momentum umquam fuit, mors et cruciatus erat constitutus? vide quam commodam defensionem excogitaris! malo mehercule id quod tu defendis his iudicibus populoque Romano quam id quod ego insimulo probari, malo, inquam, te isti generi hominum quam mercatoribus et naviculariis inimicum atque infestum putari; meum enim crimen avaritiae te nimiae coarguit, tua defensio furoris cuiusdam et immanitatis et inauditae crudelitatis et paene novae proscriptionis.

But it is not lawful for me, gentlemen, to use this great advantage; it is not. For all Puteoli is here. Most thickly the merchants have come to this trial, well-off and honourable men, who say that some of their partners, some of their freedmen, some of their fellow-freedmen were despoiled, were thrown into chains; some in the chains were killed; some were struck with the axe. Here see how fairly you shall use me. When I shall have brought forth Publius Granius as witness, who shall say that his freedmen were struck with the axe by you, who shall demand back from you his ship and his wares — refute him, if you can. I shall abandon my witness; I shall favour you; I shall help you, I say. Show that those men were with Sertorius, that they were brought from Dianium fleeing to Sicily. There is nothing I more wish you to prove. For no deed can be found or brought forth which is worthy of greater punishment.

sed non licet me isto tanto bono, iudices, uti, non licet. adsunt enim Puteoli toti; frequentissimi venerunt ad hoc iudicium mercatores, homines locupletes atque honesti, qui partim socios suos, partim libertos, partim conlibertos spoliatos in vincla coniectos, partim in vinclis necatos, partim securi percussos esse dicunt. hic vide quam me sis usurus aequo. cum ego P. Granium testem produxero qui suos libertos abs te securi percussos esse dicat, qui abs te navem suam mercesque repetat, refellito, si poteris; meum testem deseram, tibi favebo, te, inquam, adiuvabo; ostendito illos cum Sertorio fuisse, ab Dianio fugientis ad Siciliam esse delatos. nihil est quod te mallem probare; nullum enim facinus quod maiore supplicio dignum sit reperiri neque proferri potest.

I shall bring back again the Roman knight Lucius Flavius, if you wish, since in the previous hearing — as your patrons keep saying, by a kind of new wisdom; as all understand, by your guilt and the authority of my witnesses — you questioned no witness. Let Flavius be questioned, if you wish, who was Titus Herennius — he whom Flavius says had a banking-house at Leptis; who, although he had more than a hundred Roman citizens of the Syracusan assize who not only knew him but even, weeping and imploring you, defended him — yet, with all looking on at Syracuse, was struck with the axe. This witness of mine too I wish refuted, and that Herennius shown and proved by you to have been Sertorian.

reducam iterum equitem Romanum, L. Flavium, si voles, quoniam priore actione,—ut patroni tui dictitant, nova quadam sapientia, ut omnes intellegunt, conscientia tua atque auctoritate meorum testium,—testem nullum interrogasti. interrogetur Flavius, si voles, quinam fuerit T. Herennius, is quem ille argentariam Lepti fecisse dicit; qui cum amplius centum civis Romanos haberet ex conventu Syracusano qui eum non solum cognoscerent sed etiam lacrimantes ac te implorantes defenderent, tamen inspectantibus omnibus Syracusis securi percussus est. hunc quoque testem meum refelli et illum Herennium Sertorianum fuisse abs te demonstrari et probari volo.

What shall we say of that multitude of those who, with their heads veiled, were brought forth in the number of captured pirates, that they might be struck with the axe? What new diligence is this, for what cause devised by you? Or did the cry of L. Flavius and the others about T. Herennius move you? Or had the highest authority of M. Annius, a most grave and most honourable man, made you a little more diligent and more fearful? Who lately said in evidence that you had struck with the axe not some stranger nor an alien, but a Roman citizen who was known to all in that assize, who had been born at Syracuse.

quid de illa multitudine dicemus eorum qui capitibus involutis in piratarum captivorum numero producebantur, ut securi ferirentur? quae ista nova diligentia, quam ob causam abs te excogitata? an te L. Flavi ceterorumque de T. Herennio vociferatio commovebat? an M. Anni, gravissimi atque honestissimi viri, summa auctoritas paulo diligentiorem timidioremque fecerat? qui nuper pro testimonio non advenam nescio quem nec alienum, sed eum civem Romanum qui omnibus in illo conventu notus, qui Syracusis natus esset, abs te securi percussum esse dixit.

After this cry of theirs, after this common rumour and complaint, he began to be not milder in punishment, but more diligent. He began to bring forth Roman citizens, with their heads veiled, to death; whom he yet on this account killed openly, that the men in the assize (as I said before) were too diligently asking for the number of brigands. Was this the condition set up under you as praetor for the Roman commons, this the hope of doing business, this the crisis of life and head? Are too few perils set out for merchants of necessity from fortune, that even these terrors should hang over from our magistrates and in our provinces? Was this suburban and faithful province, full of the best allies and most honourable citizens, which has always most willingly received all Roman citizens in her own seats — was this for that purpose: that those who sailed all the way from the farthest Syria and Egypt, who among barbarians had been in some honour on account of the name of the toga, who had fled out of the snares of brigands, out of the perils of storms, should in Sicily be struck with the axe, when they reckoned themselves now come home?

post hanc illorum vociferationem, post hanc communem famam atque querimoniam non mitior in supplicio, sed diligentior esse coepit; capitibus involutis civis Romanos ad necem producere instituit; quos tamen idcirco necabat palam quod homines in conventu, id quod antea dixi, nimium diligenter praedonum numerum requirebant. Haecine plebi Romanae te praetore est constituta condicio, haec negoti gerendi spes, hoc capitis vitaeque discrimen? Parumne multa mercatoribus sunt necessario pericula subeunda fortunae, nisi etiam hae formidines ab nostris magistratibus atque in nostris provinciis impendebunt? ad eamne rem fuit haec suburbana ac fidelis provincia, plena optimorum sociorum honestissimorumque civium, quae civis Romanos omnis suis ipsa sedibus libentissime semper accepit, ut, qui usque ex ultima Syria atque Aegypto navigarent, qui apud barbaros propter togae nomen in honore aliquo fuissent, qui ex praedonum insidiis, qui ex tempestatum periculis profugissent, in Sicilia securi ferirentur, cum se iam domum venisse arbitrarentur?

For what shall I say, gentlemen, of Publius Gavius, a townsman of Consa? With what force of voice, with what gravity of words, with what grief of mind shall I speak? Although grief does not fail me; rather I must labour the more that the rest may suffice me in speaking, worthy of the matter, worthy of my grief. The charge is of such a kind that, when first it was brought to me, I did not think I should use it. For although I knew it was most true, yet I did not reckon it would be credible. Compelled by the tears of all the Roman citizens who do business in Sicily, drawn on by the testimonies of the Valentini, most honourable men, and of all the Reginians, and of many Roman knights who happened then to be at Messana, I gave only as many witnesses in the previous hearing as ensured the matter could be doubtful to no one.

nam quid ego de P. Gavio, Consano municipe, dicam, iudices, aut qua vi vocis, qua gravitate verborum, quo dolore animi dicam? tametsi dolor me non deficit; ut cetera mihi in dicendo digna re, digna dolore meo, suppetant magis laborandum est. quod crimen eius modi est ut, cum primum ad me delatum est, usurum me illo non putarem; tametsi enim verissimum esse intellegebam, tamen credibile fore non arbitrabar. coactus lacrimis omnium civium Romanorum qui in Sicilia negotiantur, adductus Valentinorum, hominum honestissimorum, omniumque Reginorum testimoniis multorumque equitum Romanorum qui casu tum Messanae fuerunt, dedi tantum priore actione testium res ut nemini dubia esse possit.

What shall I do now? When I have spoken so many hours about one kind, about this man’s unspeakable cruelty; when I have used up almost every force of words of such a kind which would be worthy of his crime in other matters, and have not foreseen this — to keep you attentive by the variety of charges — in what manner shall I speak about so great a matter? I think there is one way, one method. I shall set the matter in the open. It has of itself such weight that neither my eloquence (which is none) nor any man’s is needed to set your minds on fire.

quid nunc agam? cum iam tot horas de uno genere ac de istius nefaria crudelitate dicam, cum prope omnem vim verborum eius modi, quae scelere istius digna sint, aliis in rebus consumpserim, neque hoc providerim, ut varietate criminum vos attentos tenerem, quem ad modum de tanta re dicam? opinor, unus modus atque una ratio est; rem in medio ponam; quae tantum habet ipsa gravitatis ut neque mea, quae nulla est, neque cuiusquam ad inflammandos vestros animos eloquentia requiratur.

This Gavius of whom I speak, of Consa, when he had been thrown into chains by him in that number of Roman citizens, and somehow had secretly fled from the stone-quarries and had come to Messana — when he saw Italy now so near, and the walls of the Reginians, Roman citizens, and from that fear of death and that darkness had revived as if at the light of liberty and at some breath of the laws — began to speak at Messana and to complain that he, a Roman citizen, had been thrown into chains; that his road lay straight to Rome; that he would be at hand to meet Verres on his arrival. He did not understand, the wretch, that there was no difference between speaking these things at Messana or at this man’s praetorium. For (as I have shown you before) this man had chosen for himself this city to have as helper of his crimes, receiver of his thefts, accomplice of all his disgraces. So Gavius is at once led to the Mamertine magistrate, and on that very day Verres came by chance to Messana. The matter is reported to him: that there was a Roman citizen who was complaining that he had been at Syracuse in the stone-quarries; that, as he was already going onto a ship and threatening Verres too fiercely, he had been dragged back by them and kept, that he himself might decide concerning him whatever should seem good.

Gavius hic quem dico, Consanus, cum in illo numero civium Romanorum ab isto in vincla coniectus esset et nescio qua ratione clam e lautumiis profugisset Messanamque venisset, qui tam prope iam Italiam et moenia Reginorum, civium Romanorum, videret et ex illo metu mortis ac tenebris quasi luce libertatis et odore aliquo legum recreatus revixisset, loqui Messanae et queri coepit se civem Romanum in vincla coniectum, sibi recta iter esse Romam, Verri se praesto advenienti futurum. non intellegebat miser nihil interesse utrum haec Messanae an apud istum in praetorio loqueretur; nam, ut antea vos docui, hanc sibi iste urbem delegerat quam haberet adiutricem scelerum, furtorum receptricem, flagitiorum omnium consciam. itaque ad magistratum Mamertinum statim deducitur Gavius, eoque ipso die casu Messanam Verres venit. res ad eum defertur, esse civem Romanum qui se Syracusis in lautumiis fuisse quereretur; quem iam ingredientem in navem et Verri nimis atrociter minitantem ab se retractum esse et adservatum, ut ipse in eum statueret quod videretur.

He thanks the men and praises their goodwill toward himself and their diligence. He himself, set on fire with crime and frenzy, comes into the forum. His eyes were burning; from his whole face cruelty stood out. All were waiting how far he was about to go, or what at last he was going to do, when suddenly he orders the man to be dragged forth and stripped naked in the middle of the forum, and bound, and the rods made ready. The wretched man cried that he was a Roman citizen, a townsman of Consa; that he had served with Lucius Raecius, a most splendid Roman knight, who was doing business at Panhormus, from whom Verres could know these things. Then this man said that he had learned that the man had been sent into Sicily by the leaders of runaway slaves to spy — of which thing there was for anyone neither informer nor any trace nor any suspicion. Then he orders the man to be most vehemently flogged from every side.

agit hominibus gratias et eorum benivolentiam erga se diligentiamque conlaudat. ipse inflammatus scelere et furore in forum venit; ardebant oculi, toto ex ore crudelitas eminebat. exspectabant omnes quo tandem progressurus aut quidnam acturus esset, cum repente hominem proripi atque in foro medio nudari ac deligari et virgas expediri iubet. clamabat ille miser se civem esse Romanum, municipem Consanum; meruisse cum L. Raecio, splendidissimo equite Romano, qui Panhormi negotiaretur, ex quo haec Verres scire posset. tum iste, se comperisse eum speculandi causa in Siciliam a ducibus fugitivorum esse missum; cuius rei neque index neque vestigium aliquod neque suspicio cuiquam esset ulla; deinde iubet undique hominem vehementissime verberari.

A Roman citizen, gentlemen, was being beaten with rods in the middle of the forum at Messana, while in the meantime no groan, no other voice of that wretched man was heard amid the pain and the crashing of the blows save this: civis Romanus sum — "I am a Roman citizen." By this recollection of his citizenship he reckoned he would beat off all the floggings and cast the torture from his body. He not only did not bring this to pass — to plead off the force of the rods — but, when he was imploring the more often and using the name of citizenship, the cross — the cross, I say — was being prepared for that unhappy and miserable man, who had never seen that pestilence.

caedebatur virgis in medio foro Messanae civis Romanus, iudices, cum interea nullus gemitus, nulla vox alia illius miseri inter dolorem crepitumque plagarum audiebatur nisi haec, ’ civis Romanus sum.’ hac se commemoratione civitatis! omnia verbera depulsurum cruciatumque a corpore deiecturum arbitrabatur; is non modo hoc non perfecit, ut virgarum vim deprecaretur, sed cum imploraret saepius usurparetque nomen civitatis, crux,—crux, inquam,—infelici et aerumnoso, qui numquam istam pestem viderat, comparabatur.

O sweet name of liberty! O singular right of our citizenship! O Porcian law and Sempronian laws! O tribunician power, gravely longed for and at last given back to the Roman commons! Have all these things at last fallen so low that, in a province of the Roman people, in a town of allies, a Roman citizen, by him who held the fasces and axes through the kindness of the Roman people, should be bound in the forum and beaten with rods? What? When fires and burning plates and the rest of the tortures were being brought up, if his bitter imploring and his miserable voice did not hold you back, were you not moved at all by the weeping and the great groaning of the Roman citizens who were then present? Did you dare to drive to the cross any man who said he was a Roman citizen? I would not press this so vehemently in the first hearing, gentlemen — I would not. For you saw how the spirits of the multitude were stirred against him by grief and by hatred and by the fear of common peril. I myself then set a measure both to my speech and to Gaius Numitorius, a Roman knight, a leading man, my witness; and I rejoiced that Glabrio did what he most wisely did — to dismiss the council suddenly in the middle of the testimony. For he feared that the Roman people might seem to have demanded back by force from him those punishments which it had feared he would not pay by the laws and by your judgement.

nomen dulce libertatis! o ius eximium nostrae civitatis o lex Porcia legesque Semproniae! o graviter desiderata et aliquando reddita plebi Romanae tribunicia potestas! hucine tandem haec omnia reciderunt ut civis Romanus in provincia populi Romani, in oppido foederatorum, ab eo qui beneficio populi Romani fascis et securis haberet deligatus in foro virgis caederetur? quid? cum ignes ardentesque laminae ceterique cruciatus admovebantur, si te illius acerba imploratio et vox miserabilis non inhibebat, ne civium quidem Romanorum qui tum aderant fletu et gemitu maximo commovebare? in crucem tu agere ausus es quemquam qui se civem Romanum esse diceret? nolui tam vehementer agere hoc prima actione, iudices, nolui; vidistis enim ut animi multitudinis in istum dolore et odio et communis periculi metu concitarentur. statui egomet mihi tum modum et orationi meae et C. Numitorio, equiti Romano, primo homini, testi meo; et Glabrionem id quod sapientissime fecit facere laetatus sum, ut repente consilium in medio testimonio dimitteret. etenim verebatur ne populus Romanus ab isto eas poenas vi repetisse videretur, quas veritus esset ne iste legibus ac vestro iudicio non esset persoluturus.

Now since it is now clear to all in what place your case is and what is to come of you, so I shall deal with you. That Gavius, whom you say was a sudden spy, I shall show was thrown by you into the stone-quarries at Syracuse; nor shall I show this only by the writings of the Syracusans, lest you say that, because there is some Gavius in those writings, I am feigning this and choosing the name, that I may say this is that one. But at your own discretion I shall give witnesses who say that this very man was thrown into the stone-quarries by you at Syracuse. I shall produce also townsmen of Consa, his kinsmen, who shall now teach you (too late), and the judges (not too late), that that Publius Gavius whom you drove to the cross was a Roman citizen and townsman of Consa, was no spy of runaways.

nunc quoniam iam exploratum est omnibus quo loco causa tua sit et quid de te futurum sit, sic tecum agam. Gavium istum, quem repentinum speculatorem fuisse dicis, ostendam in lautumias Syracusis a te esse coniectum, neque id solum ex litteris ostendam Syracusanorum, ne possis dicere me, quia sit aliqui in litteris Gavius, hoc fingere et eligere nomen, ut hunc illum esse possim dicere, sed ad arbitrium tuum testis dabo qui istum ipsum Syracusis abs te in lautumias coniectum esse dicant. producam etiam Consanos municipes illius ac necessarios, qui te nunc sero doceant, iudices non sero, illum P. Gavium quem tu in crucem egisti civem Romanum et municipem Consanum, non speculatorem fugitivorum fuisse.

When I shall have made all these things which I promise heaped up plain to those nearest to you, then I shall hold to that very point which is given me by you. With this, I shall say, I am content. For what did you yourself say lately, when you were thrown into confusion by the cry and onset of the Roman people, what did you spring up and let out? That he, because he was looking for a delay of punishment, on that account had cried that he was a Roman citizen, but had been a spy. Now my witnesses are true. For what else does Gaius Numitorius say, what Marcus and Publius Cottius, most noble men of the Tauromenitan country, what Quintus Lucceius, who had the largest banking-house at Regium, what the rest? Up to now I have given witnesses of that kind not who would say they had known Gavius, but that they had seen him, when he, who was crying that he was a Roman citizen, was being driven to the cross. This you, Verres, also say, this you confess: that he kept crying he was a Roman citizen; that with you the name of citizenship had not even so much weight as to bring some hesitation about the cross — some little delay even in that most cruel and most foul punishment.

cum haec omnia quae polliceor cumulate tuis proximis plana fecero, tum istuc ipsum tenebo quod abs te mihi datur; eo contentum esse me dicam. quid enim nuper tu ipse, cum populi Romani clamore atque impetu perturbatus exsiluisti, quid, inquam, elocutus es? illum, quod moram supplicio quaereret, ideo clamitasse se esse civem Romanum, sed speculatorem fuisse. iam mei testes veri sunt. quid enim dicit aliud C. Numitorius, quid M. et P. Cottii, nobilissimi homines ex agro Tauromenitano, quid Q. Lucceius, qui argentariam Regi maximam fecit, quid ceteri? adhuc enim testes ex eo genere a me sunt dati, non qui novisse Gavium, sed se vidisse dicerent, cum is, qui se civem Romanum esse clamaret, in crucem ageretur. hoc tu, Verres, idem dicis, hoc tu confiteris, illum clamitasse se civem esse Romanum; apud te nomen civitatis ne tantum quidem valuisse ut dubitationem aliquam crucis, ut crudelissimi taeterrimique supplici aliquam parvam moram saltem posset adferre.

On this I hold; here I cling, gentlemen; with this one thing I am content; I leave aside and neglect the rest. By his own confession he must be wrapped and slain. You did not know who he was; you suspected him to be a spy. I do not ask of what suspicion. By your own speech I accuse you. He said he was a Roman citizen. If you, Verres, caught among the Persians or in the farthest India, were being led to punishment, what else would you cry but that you were a Roman citizen? And if to you, unknown among the unknown, among the barbarians, among men set in the most distant and farthest nations, the noble and illustrious name of your citizenship had been a help among all — could not he, whoever he was, whom you were dragging to the cross, who was unknown to you, when he said he was a Roman citizen, with you as praetor, gain not even a delay of death by the mention and use of citizenship, if not an escape?

hoc teneo, hic haereo, iudices, hoc sum contentus uno, omitto ac neglego cetera; sua confessione induatur ac iuguletur necesse est. qui esset ignorabas, speculatorem esse suspicabare; non quaero qua suspicione, tua te accuso oratione: civem Romanum se esse dicebat. si tu apud Persas aut in extrema India deprensus, Verres, ad supplicium ducerere, quid aliud clamitares nisi te civem esse Romanum? et si tibi ignoto apud ignotos, apud barbaros, apud homines in extremis atque ultimis gentibus positos, nobile et inlustre apud omnis nomen civitatis tuae profuisset, ille, quisquis erat, quem tu in crucem rapiebas, qui tibi esset ignotus, cum civem se Romanum esse diceret, apud te praetorem si non effugium ne moram quidem mortis mentione atque usurpatione civitatis adsequi potuit?

Slight men, born in obscure place, sail; they come to those places which they have never seen before, where they cannot either be known by those to whom they have come, nor always be with witnesses to know them. Yet by this one trust in their citizenship, they reckon themselves safe not only with our magistrates (who are held by the peril of laws and of standing) and not only with Roman citizens (who are joined by the partnership of speech and of right and of many things), but, wherever they shall come, they hope this thing will be a protection to them.

homines tenues, obscuro loco nati, navigant, adeunt ad ea loca quae numquam antea viderunt, ubi neque noti esse iis quo venerunt, neque semper cum cognitoribus esse possunt. hac una tamen fiducia civitatis non modo apud nostros magistratus, qui et legum et existimationis periculo continentur, neque apud civis solum Romanos, qui et sermonis et iuris et multarum rerum societate iuncti sunt, fore se tutos arbitrantur, sed, quocumque venerint, hanc sibi rem praesidio sperant futuram.

Take away this hope, take away this protection from Roman citizens, lay it down that there is no help in this voice, civis Romanus sum, that a praetor or any other can with impunity inflict whatever punishment he wishes on him who says he is a Roman citizen, when he does not know who he is: now you will have shut off all provinces, now all kingdoms, now all free cities, now the whole world, which has always lain most open to our men, by that defence to Roman citizens. What? When he was naming Lucius Raecius, a Roman knight, who was then in Sicily, was even this a great thing — to send a letter to Panhormus? You should have kept the man under the guards of your Mamertines; you should have had him bound and shut up, until Raecius came from Panhormus. If he should know the man, you should have remitted something of the highest punishment. If he should not know him, then, if it should so seem to you, you should have set up this right against all: that he who was neither known to you nor gave a wealthy witness to know him, however much a Roman citizen he was, should be lifted up upon the cross.

tolle hanc spem, tolle hoc praesidium civibus Romanis, constitue nihil esse opis in hac voce, ’ civis Romanus sum,’ posse impune praetorem aut alium quempiam supplicium quod velit in eum constituere qui se civem Romanum esse dicat, quod qui sit ignoret: iam omnis provincias, iam omnia regna, iam omnis liberas civitates, iam omnem orbem terrarum, qui semper nostris hominibus maxime patuit, civibus Romanis ista defensione praecluseris. quid? si L. Raecium, equitem Romanum, qui tum erat in Sicilia, nominabat, etiamne id magnum fuit, Panhormum litteras mittere? adservasses hominem custodiis Mamertinorum tuorum, vinctum clausum habuisses, dum Panhormo Raecius veniret; cognosceret hominem, aliquid de summo supplicio remitteres; si ignoraret, tum, si ita tibi videretur, hoc iuris in omnis constitueres, ut, qui neque tibi notus esset neque cognitorem locupletem daret, quamvis civis Romanus esset, in crucem tolleretur.

But why do I say more about Gavius? As if you had been hostile then to Gavius, and not the enemy of the name, of the race, of the right of citizens. Not to that man, I say, but to the common cause of liberty were you the enemy. For what need was there, when the Mamertines after their custom and institution had fixed a cross beyond the city on the Via Pompeia, that you should order it to be fixed in that part which looked toward the strait, and add this — which you cannot in any way deny, which you said openly with all hearing — that you chose that place on this account: that he, since he said he was a Roman citizen, might from the cross see Italy and look out toward his own home? So that cross alone, gentlemen, since Messana was founded, was set up in that place. The view of Italy was chosen by him for this thing: that the man, dying in pain and torture, should learn the rights of slavery and liberty divided by a most narrow strait; while Italy should see her own nursling fixed up by the last and highest punishment of slavery.

sed quid ego plura de Gavio? quasi tu Gavio tum fueris infestus ac non nomini generi iuri civium hostis. non illi, inquam, homini sed causae communi libertatis inimicus fuisti. quid enim attinuit, cum Mamertini more atque instituto suo crucem fixissent post urbem in via Pompeia, te iubere in ea parte figere quae ad fretum spectaret, et hoc addere,—quod negare nullo modo potes, quod omnibus audientibus dixisti palam,—te idcirco illum locum deligere, ut ille, quoniam se civem Romanum esse diceret, ex cruce Italiam cernere ac domum suam prospicere posset? itaque illa crux sola, iudices, post conditam Messanam illo in loco fixa est. Italiae conspectus ad eam rem ab isto delectus est, ut ille in dolore cruciatuque moriens perangusto fretu divisa servitutis ac libertatis iura cognosceret, Italia autem alumnum suum servitutis extremo summoque supplicio adfixum videret.

It is a deed to bind a Roman citizen; a crime to flog one; almost parricide to kill one. What shall I say to crucify? By no word fit enough can so unspeakable a thing be called. He was not content with all these. "Let him look on his fatherland," he says; "let him die in the sight of the laws and of liberty." It was not Gavius, in this place, not some one man, but the common cause of liberty and citizenship that you drove to that torture and cross. Now see the man’s audacity! Do you not think that he took it heavily that he could not fix that cross for Roman citizens in the forum, in the Comitium, on the Rostra? For what in his province was likest to those places by frequency, nearest by region, he chose. He wished a monument of his crime and audacity to be in sight of Italy, in the vestibule of Sicily, in the line of passage of all who sail to and fro.

facinus est vincire civem Romanum, scelus verberare, prope parricidium necare: quid dicam in crucem tollere? verbo satis digno tam nefaria res appellari nullo modo potest. non fuit his omnibus iste contentus; ’spectet,’ inquit, ’patriam; in conspectu legum libertatisque moriatur.’ non tu hoc loco Gavium, non unum hominem nescio quem, sed communem libertatis et civitatis causam in illum cruciatum et crucem egisti. iam vero videte hominis audaciam! nonne eum graviter tulisse arbitramini quod illam civibus Romanis crucem non posset in foro, non in comitio, non in rostris defigere? quod enim his locis in provincia sua celebritate simillimum, regione proximum potuit, elegit; monumentum sceleris audaciaeque suae voluit esse in conspectu Italiae, vestibulo Siciliae, praetervectione omnium qui ultro citroque s navigarent.

If I were wishing to lament and to deplore these things not before Roman citizens, not before any friends of our state, not before those who had heard the name of the Roman people, finally if not before men but before beasts, or even (that I may go further) if in some most deserted solitude I were wishing to deplore them before rocks and crags, yet all things mute and lifeless would be moved by such great and so unworthy a bitterness of the matters. Now indeed, when I speak before senators of the Roman people, the authors of laws and trials and right, I ought not to fear that this man should not be judged the only Roman citizen worthy of that cross, while all the rest are most unworthy of like peril.

si haec non ad civis Romanos, non ad aliquos amicos nostrae civitatis, non ad eos qui populi Romani nomen audissent, denique si non ad homines verum ad bestias, aut etiam, ut longius progrediar, si in aliqua desertissima solitudine ad saxa et ad scopulos haec conqueri ac deplorare vellem, tamen omnia muta atque inanima tanta et tam indigna rerum acerbitate commoverentur. nunc vero cum loquar apud senatores populi Romani, legum et iudiciorum et iuris auctores, timere non debeo ne non unus iste civis Romanus illa cruce dignus, ceteri omnes simili periculo indignissimi iudicentur.

A little before, gentlemen, we did not hold back our tears at the wretched and unworthy death of the captains; and rightly and deservedly we were moved by the misery of innocent allies. What now, in the matter of our own blood, ought we to do? For the blood of all Roman citizens must be reckoned joined, since the reckoning of the safety of all and truth itself demand it. All Roman citizens in this place — those who are present and those who are everywhere — demand your strictness, implore your faith, ask for your help. They reckon that all their rights, advantages, helps, finally their whole liberty, lie in your votes.

Paulo ante, iudices, lacrimas in morte misera atque indigna nauarchorum non tenebamus, et recte ac merito sociorum innocentium miseria commovebamur: quid nunc in nostro sanguine tandem facere debemus? nam civium Romanorum omnium sanguis coniunctus existimandus est, quoniam et salutis omnium ratio et veritas postulat. omnes hoc loco cives Romani, et qui adsunt et qui ubique sunt, vestram severitatem desiderant, vestram fidem implorant, vestrum auxilium requirunt; omnia sua iura commoda auxilia, totam denique libertatem in vestris sententiis versari arbitrantur.

From me, although they have enough, yet, if the matter shall fall otherwise, perhaps they shall have more than they ask. For if any force shall snatch this man out of your strictness — which I neither fear, gentlemen, nor see can in any way come about — but if in this my reasoning has deceived me, the Sicilians shall complain that their cause is lost and shall take it heavily equally with me. The Roman people indeed in a short while, since it has given me the power of pleading before it, shall recover its own right, with me as actor by its votes, before the Kalends of February. And if you ask, gentlemen, about my glory and amplitude, it is not foreign to my reckonings that this man should be snatched from this trial and reserved for that judgement of the Roman people. Splendid is that case, well-considered for me and easy, welcome and pleasant to the people. Finally, if I should seem here (which I have not sought) to have wished to grow out of this one man, with him acquitted (which cannot happen without the crime of many), I shall be allowed to grow out of many. But, by Hercules, for your sake and for the commonwealth’s, gentlemen, I do not wish so great a disgrace to be committed in this picked council; I do not wish those judges whom I have approved and chosen to go about in this city, with him acquitted, so marked that they should seem smeared not with wax but with mud.

A me tametsi satis habent, tamen, si res aliter acciderit, plus habebunt fortasse quam postulant. nam si qua vis istum de vestra severitate eripuerit, id quod neque metuo, iudices, neque ullo modo fieri posse video,—sed si in hoc me ratio fefellerit, Siculi causam suam perisse querentur et mecum pariter moleste ferent, populus quidem Romanus brevi, quoniam mihi potestatem apud se agendi dedit, ius suum me agente suis suffragiis ante Kalendas Februarias recuperabit. ac si de mea gloria atque amplitudine quaeritis, iudices, non est alienum meis rationibus istum mihi ex hoc iudicio ereptum ad illud populi Romani iudicium reservari. splendida est illa causa, probabilis mihi et facilis, populo grata atque iucunda; denique si videor hic, id quod ego non quaesivi, de uno isto voluisse crescere, isto absoluto, quod sine multorum scelere fieri non potest, de multis mihi crescere licebit. sed mehercule vestra reique publicae causa, iudices, nolo in hoc delecto consilio tantum flagiti esse commissum, nolo eos iudices quos ego probarim atque delegerim sic in hac urbe notatos isto absoluto ambulare ut non cera sed caeno obliti esse videantur.

Wherefore I warn you also, Hortensius, if there is any place from this place for warning, see again and again and consider what you do, where you go forward, what man and by what reasoning you defend. Nor do I lay down anything for you, that you should not contend with me by talent and by every faculty of speaking. The rest, if you think you can do more secretly outside the trial what has to do with the trial; if you think to plan anything by artifice, counsel, power, favour, or by this man’s resources — I greatly hold that you should desist; and what has now been tried and begun by him, but tracked out and known by me, I warn you to extinguish and not to allow to go further. With great peril of yours, sin shall be committed in this trial — with greater than you suppose.

quam ob rem te quoque, Hortensi, si qui monendi locus ex hoc loco est, moneo videas etiam atque etiam et consideres quid agas, quo progrediare, quem hominem et qua ratione defendas. neque de illo tibi quicquam praefinio quo minus ingenio mecum atque omni dicendi facultate contendas; cetera si qua putas te occultius extra iudicium quae ad iudicium pertineant facere posse, si quid artificio consilio potentia gratia, copiis istius moliri cogitas, magno opere censeo desistas, et illa quae temptata iam et coepta sunt ab isto, a me autem pervestigata et cognita, moneo ut exstinguas et longius progredi ne sinas. Magno tuo periculo peccabitur in hoc iudicio, maiore quam putas.

For although you reckon yourself now freed from the fear of standing, discharged of the honours of consul-designate, believe me: those ornaments and benefits of the Roman people are kept with no smaller business than they are obtained. This state has borne, as long as it could, as long as it was necessary, that royal lordship of yours in trials and in all the commonwealth, has borne it. But on the day on which the tribunes of the plebs were given back to the Roman people, all those things, if perhaps you do not yet understand, were taken and snatched from you. The eyes of all are now turned, at this very moment, on each one of us: with what faith I shall accuse, with what scruple these men shall judge, with what reasoning you shall defend.

quod enim te liberatum iam existimationis metu, defunctum honoribus designatum consulem cogites, mihi crede, ornamenta ista et beneficia populi Romani non minore negotio retinentur quam comparantur. tulit haec civitas quoad potuit, quoad necesse fuit, regiam istam vestram dominationem in iudiciis et in omni re publica, tulit; sed quo die populo Romano tribuni plebi restituti sunt, omnia ista vobis, si forte nondum intellegitis, adempta atque erepta sunt. omnium nunc oculi coniecti sunt hoc ipso tempore in unum quemque nostrum, qua fide ego accusem, qua religione hi iudicent, qua tu ratione defendas.

Of all of us, if any shall have turned a hair from the right region, not that silent reckoning which you were before wont to despise, but the vehement and free judgement of the Roman people will follow. To you, Quintus, there is no kinship with this man, no connection. The excuses by which you were before wont to defend an excessive zeal of yours in some trial — you can have none of these in this man’s case. Those things which he in the province openly used to say — when he was saying that he was doing what he was doing on your trust — it must be most provided for by you that they should not be reckoned true.

de omnibus nobis, si qui tantulum de recta regione deflexerit, non illa tacita existimatio quam antea contemnere solebatis, sed vehemens ac liberum populi Romani iudicium consequetur. nulla tibi, (2Quinte, cum isto cognatio, nulla necessitudo; quibus excusationibus antea nimium in aliquo iudicio studium tuum defendere solebas, earum habere in hoc homine nullam potes. quae iste in provincia palam dictitabat, cum ea quae faciebat tua se fiducia facere dicebat, ea ne vera putentur tibi maxime est providendum.

I now trust that the reckoning of my duty has been paid even to all my most unfair adversaries; for I condemned this man in a few hours of the first hearing by the votes of all mortals. The remaining trial will now be not about my faith (which has been seen through), nor about this man’s life (which has been condemned), but about the judges and (truly to say) about you. But at what time will it be? — for that must be most provided for. For in all things, but most in the commonwealth, the reasoning and inclination of the times is of very great weight. Surely at this: when the Roman people demands another kind of men and another order for judging matters — with a law about courts and new judges promulgated; which not he promulgated whose name you see proscribed, but this defendant; this man, I say, by his own hope and the opinion he holds of you, saw to it that that law was written and promulgated.

ego mei rationem iam offici confido esse omnibus iniquissimis meis persolutam; nam istum paucis horis primae actionis omnium mortalium sententiis condemnavi. reliquum iudicium iam non de mea fide, quae perspecta est, nec de istius vita, quae damnata est, sed de iudicibus et, vere ut dicam, de te futurum est. at quo tempore futurum est?—nam id maxime providendum est; etenim cum omnibus in rebus, tum in re publica permagni momenti est ratio atque inclinatio temporum. nempe eo, cum populus Romanus aliud genus hominum atque alium ordinem ad res iudicandas requirit, nempe lege de iudiciis iudicibusque novis promulgata; quam non is promulgavit quo nomine proscriptam videtis, sed hic reus,—hic, inquam, sua spe atque opinione quam de vobis habet legem illam scribendam promulgandamque curavit.

So when we first began to plead, the law was not promulgated. When this man, moved by your strictness, had given many signs why he did not seem about to answer, no mention of the law was being made. After this man seemed to be revived and confirmed, the law was at once promulgated. To which law, while your dignity vehemently stands against it, this man’s false hope and notable shamelessness most lend support. Here, if anything shall be committed by any of you that is reproached, either the Roman people will judge about that man whom it has already before judged unworthy of the courts, or those will judge who, on account of the offence of the courts, will by the new law be set up as new judges over the old.

itaque cum primo agere coepimus, lex non erat promulgata; cum iste vestra severitate permotus multa signa dederat quam ob rem responsurus non videretur, mentio de lege nulla fiebat; posteaquam iste recreari et confirmari visus est, lex statim promulgata est. cui legi cum vestra dignitas vehementer adversetur, istius spes falsa et insignis impudentia maxime suffragatur. hic si quid erit commissum a quoquam vestrum quod reprendatur, aut populus Romanus iudicabit de eo homine quem iam ante iudiciis indignum putarit, aut ei qui propter offensionem iudiciorum de veteribus iudicibus lege nova novi iudices erunt constituti.

For me, moreover — so that I should not say it — who of all mortals does not understand how far it is necessary to go forward? Can I be silent, Hortensius? Can I pretend, when the commonwealth has received so great a wound that the despoiled provinces, the harassed allies, the immortal gods despoiled, the Roman citizens tortured and killed, seem to be unpunished, with me as actor? Can I either lay this great burden down in this trial, or sustain it silently? Will not the matter have to be agitated, brought into the open, the faith of the Roman people implored, all those who have bound themselves with such great crime, that they should either suffer their faith to be corrupted or should corrupt the trial, brought into crisis or into trial?

mihi porro, ut ego non dicam, quis omnium mortalium non intellegit quam longe progredi sit necesse? potero silere, Hortensi, potero dissimulare, cum tantum res publica vulnus acceperit ut expilatae provinciae, vexati socii, di immortales spoliati, cives Romani cruciati et necati impune me actore esse videantur? potero ego hoc onus tantum aut in hoc iudicio deponere aut tacitus sustinere? non agitanda res erit, non in medium proferenda, non populi Romani fides imploranda, non omnes qui tanto se scelere obstrinxerunt ut aut fidem suam corrumpi paterentur aut iudicium corrumperent in discrimen aut iudicium vocandi?

Someone perhaps will ask: "Are you then about to take up so great a labour, so great enmities of so many men?" Not from any zeal nor from will, by Hercules; but it is not allowed me what is allowed those who are born of noble birth, to whom all the kindnesses of the Roman people are brought while they sleep. By a far other law and condition I must live in this state. There comes into my mind Marcus Cato, a most wise and most vigilant man, who, since he reckoned himself to be commended to the Roman people by virtue, not by birth — since he wished the beginning of his own line and name to be born and propagated from himself — took on himself the enmities of most powerful men, and by his greatest labours lived to the highest old age with the highest glory.

quaeret aliquis fortasse, ’ tantumne igitur laborem, tantas inimicitias tot hominum suscepturus es?’ non studio quidem hercule ullo neque voluntate; sed non idem licet mihi quod iis qui nobili genere nati sunt, quibus omnia populi Romani beneficia dormientibus deferuntur; longe alia mihi lege in hac civitate et condicione vivendum est. venit mihi in mentem M. Catonis, hominis sapientissimi et vigilantissimi; qui cum se virtute non genere populo Romano commendari putaret, cum ipse sui generis initium ac nominis ab se gigni et propagari vellet, hominum potentissimorum suscepit inimicitias, et maximis laboribus suis usque ad summam senectutem summa cum gloria vixit.

Then Quintus Pompeius, born in a humble and obscure place — did he not by very many enmities and by his greatest perils and labours attain the most ample honours? Lately we have seen Gaius Fimbria, Gaius Marius, Gaius Caelius striving with no middling enmities and labours that they might come to those honours to which you have come through play and through carelessness. This is the same region and way of our reckoning; we follow the school and institutions of these men. We see how great is the envy and how great the hatred among certain noble men of the virtue and industry of new men. If we had cast our eyes down a little, snares would be at hand. If we had opened any place to suspicion or to charge, a wound would at once have to be received. We see we must always watch, must always toil. Let there be enmities; let them be undergone.

postea Q. Pompeius, humili atque obscuro loco natus, nonne plurimis inimicitiis maximisque suis periculis ac laboribus amplissimos honores est adeptus? modo C. Fimbriam, C. Marium, C. Caelium vidimus non mediocribus inimicitiis ac laboribus contendere ut ad istos honores pervenirent ad quos vos per ludum et per neglegentiam pervenistis. haec eadem est nostrae rationis regio et via, horum nos hominum sectam atque instituta persequimur. videmus quanta sit in invidia quantoque in odio apud quosdam nobilis homines novorum hominum virtus et industria; si tantulum oculos deiecerimus, praesto esse insidias; si ullum locum aperuerimus suspicioni aut crimini, accipiendum statim vulnus esse; semper nobis vigilandum, semper laborandum videmus. inimicitiae sunt, subeantur;

Let there be labour; let it be taken up. For silent and hidden enmities are more to be feared than declared and open ones. Almost no one of the noble men favours our industry. By no services of ours can we draw their goodwill. As if they were sundered from us by nature and by birth, so they stand off from us in mind and will. Wherefore what danger have the enmities of those whose minds you have had as inimical and envious before you have taken up any enmities?

labor, suscipiatur; etenim tacitae magis et occultae inimicitiae timendae sunt quam indictae atque apertae. hominum nobilium non fere quisquam nostrae industriae favet; nullis nostris officiis benivolentiam illorum adlicere possumus; quasi natura et genere diiuncti sint, ita dissident a nobis animo ac voluntate. quare quid habent eorum inimicitiae periculi, quorum animos iam aute habueris inimicos et invidos quam ullas inimicitias susceperis?

Wherefore for me, gentlemen, this is desired: in this defendant to make an end of accusing, when both enough has been done for the Roman people and the duty undertaken to the Sicilians, my connections, has been paid out. But it has been resolved that, if the matter shall deceive my opinion which I have of you, not only those by whom most of all the fault of the corrupted trial would be will be pursued, but also those to whom the contagion of guilt will reach. So if any are who in this defendant either powerful or audacious or skilful at corrupting the trial wish to be, let them be so prepared that, with the Roman people debating, they shall see they will have to do with me. And if in this defendant, whom the Sicilians have given me as enemy, they have known me to be vehement enough, persevering enough, vigilant enough, let them reckon that against those men whose enmities I shall take up for the safety of the Roman people I shall be much graver and sharper.

quam ob rem mihi, iudices, optatum illud est, in hoc reo finem accusandi facere, cum et populo Romano satis factum et receptum officium Siculis, necessariis meis, erit persolutum; deliberatum autem est, si res opinionem meam quam de vobis habeo fefellerit, non modo eos persequi ad quos maxime culpa corrupti iudici, sed etiam illos ad quos conscientiae contagio pertinebit. proinde si qui sunt qui in hoc reo aut potentes aut audaces ant artifices ad corrumpendum iudicium velint esse, ita sint parati ut disceptante populo Romano mecum sibi rem videant futuram; et si me in hoc reo, quem mihi inimicum Siculi dederunt, satis vehementem, satis perseverantem, satis vigilantem esse cognorunt, existiment in iis hominibus quorum ego inimicitias populi Romani salutis causa suscepero multo graviorem atque acriorem futurum.

Now you, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose royal gift, worthy of your most beautiful temple, worthy of the Capitoline and that citadel of all nations, worthy of a royal gift made for you by kings, dedicated and promised to you, this man by an unspeakable crime wrung from royal hands; whose most sacred and most beautiful image he took at Syracuse: and you, Juno Regina, whose two shrines set on two islands, of allies, Malta and Samos, most sacred and most ancient, this same man by like crime stripped of all gifts and ornaments: and you, Minerva, whom likewise in two of your most distinguished and most religious temples he plundered, at Athens (when he carried off a great weight of gold), at Syracuse (when he took everything except the roof and the walls):

nunc te, Iuppiter optime maxime, cuius iste donum regale, dignum tuo pulcherrimo templo, dignum Capitolio atque ista arce omnium nationum, dignum regio munere, tibi factum ab regibus, tibi dicatum atque promissum, per nefarium scelus de manibus regiis extorsit, cuiusque sanctissimum et pulcherrimum simulacrum Syracusis sustulit; teque, Iuno Regina, cuius duo fana duabus in insulis posita sociorum, Melitae et Sami, sanctissima et antiquissima, simili scelere idem iste omnibus donis ornamentisque nudavit; teque, Minerva, quam item duobus in clarissimis et religiosissimis templis expilavit, Athenis, cum auri grande pondus, Syracusis, cum omnia praeter tectum et parietes abstulit;

and you, Latona and Apollo and Diana, whose at Delos not a shrine, but, as men’s opinion and religious sanctity holds, an ancient seat and divine home, this man plundered in a nightly brigandage and onset; and you also, Apollo, whom he took at Chios; and you again and again, Diana, whom he despoiled at Perga; whose most sacred image at Segesta, twice consecrated among the Segestans (once by their own religious obligation, again by the victory of Publius Africanus), he saw to be taken down and carried off; and you, Mercury, whom Verres set up in his house and in some private wrestling-ground, but Publius Africanus willed to be in the city of allies and in the gymnasium of the Tyndaritans the guardian and protector of the youth of those people:

teque, Latona et Apollo et Diana, quorum iste Deli non fanum, sed, ut hominum opinio et religio fert, sedem antiquam divinumque domicilium nocturno latrocinio atque impetu compilavit; etiam te, Apollo, quem iste Chio sustulit; teque etiam atque etiam, Diana, quam Pergae spoliavit, cuius simulacrum sanctissimum Segestae, bis apud Segestanos consecratum, semel ipsorum religione, iterum P. Africani victoria, tollendum asportandumque curavit; teque, Mercuri, quem Verres in domo et in privata aliqua palaestra posuit, P. Africanus in urbe sociorum et in gymnasio Tyndaritanorum iuventutis illorum custodem ac praesidem voluit esse;

and you, Hercules, whom this man, at Agrigentum, in the dead of night with a band of slaves drawn up and prepared, tried to wrench from his seat and to carry off; and you, most sacred Mother of Ida, whom he left so despoiled in the most august and most religious temple among the Engyini that now only the name of Africanus and the traces of religion violated remain, while the monuments of victory and the ornaments of the shrine do not exist; and you, the arbiters and witnesses of all the things of the forum, of the greatest counsels, of the laws and the courts, set in the most frequented place of the Roman people — Castor and Pollux, out of whose temple this man procured for himself gain and most dishonest plunder; and all gods who in the chariots of the sacred wagons visit the solemn assemblies of the games, whose journey he saw to be made and exacted for his own gain, not for the dignity of the religious observance:

teque, Hercules, quem iste Agrigenti nocte intempesta servorum instructa et comparata manu convellere suis sedibus atque auferre conatus est; teque, sanctissima mater Idaea, quam apud Enguinos augustissimo et religiosissimo in templo sic spoliatam reliquit ut nunc nomen modo Africani et vestigia violatae religionis maneant, monumenta victoriae fanique ornamenta non exstent; vosque, omnium rerum forensium, consiliorum maximorum, legum iudiciorumque arbitri et testes celeberrimo in loco populi Romani locati, Castor et Pollux, quorum e templo quaestum iste sibi et praedam improbissimam comparavit; omnesque di qui vehiculis tensarum sollemnis coetus ludorum invisitis, quorum iter iste ad suum quaestum, non ad religionum dignitatem faciundum exigendumque curavit; teque,

and you, Ceres and Libera, whose rites (as men’s opinions and religious sanctities hold) are kept by far the greatest and most secret ceremonies; from whom the beginnings of life and of food, of morals, of laws, of gentleness, of humanity are said to have been given and apportioned to men and to states; whose rites the Roman people, taken up and received from the Greeks, with such great religious sanctity both publicly and privately keeps, that they seem to have been not brought hither from them, but handed from here to the rest — which by this one man have been so polluted and violated, that he saw the one image of Ceres (which it was unlawful to be touched, indeed even seen by a man) wrenched out from the shrine at Catina and carried off; and the other took from Henna out of her own seat and home, which was such that men, when they saw her, thought either that they saw Ceres herself or an image of Ceres made not by human hand but fallen from heaven:

Ceres et Libera, quarum sacra, sicut opiniones hominum ac religiones ferunt, longe maximis atque occultissimis caerimoniis continentur, a quibus initia vitae atque victus, morum, legum, mansuetudinis, humanitatis hominibus et civitatibus data ac dispertita esse dicuntur, quarum sacra populus Romanus a Graecis adscita et accepta tanta religione et publice et privatim tuetur, non ut ab illis huc adlata, sed ut ceteris hinc tradita esse videantur, quae ab isto uno sic polluta ac violata sunt ut simulacrum Cereris unum, quod a viro non modo tangi sed ne aspici quidem fas fuit, e sacrario Catina convellendum auferendumque curarit, alterum autem Henna ex sua sede ac domo sustulerit, quod erat tale ut homines, cum viderent, aut ipsam videre se Cererem aut effigiem Cereris non humana manu factam, sed de caelo lapsam arbitrarentur,

you again and again I implore and call upon, most sacred goddesses, who dwell at those Hennensian lakes and groves, and preside over all Sicily (which has been handed to me to defend), by whom (with fruits found and distributed throughout the world) all races and nations are held by the religious sanctity of your divinity; the rest of the gods and goddesses likewise I implore and beseech, by whose temples and religious obligations this man, driven by a kind of unspeakable frenzy and audacity, always held a sacrilegious and impious war declared — if in this defendant and in this case all my counsels have looked to the safety of the allies, to the dignity of the commonwealth, to my faith; if to no thing save to duty and virtue all my cares and watchings and thoughts have laboured: that what my mind was in undertaking the case, my faith in pleading, the same be yours in judging;

— vos etiam atque etiam imploro et appello, sanctissimae deae, quae illos Hennensis lacus lucosque incolitis, cunctaeque Siciliae, quae mihi defendenda tradita est, praesidetis, a quibus inventis frugibus et in orbem terrarum distributis omnes gentes ac nationes vestri religione numinis continentur; ceteros item deos deasque omnis imploro et obtestor, quorum templis et religionibus iste nefario quodam furore et audacia instinctus bellum sacrilegum semper impiumque habuit indictum, ut, si in hoc reo atque in hac causa omnia mea consilia ad salutem sociorum, dignitatem rei publicae, fidem meam spectaverunt, si nullam ad rem nisi ad officium et virtutem omnes meae curae vigiliae cogitationesque elaborarunt, quae mea mens in suscipienda causa fuit, fides in agenda, eadem vestra sit in iudicanda;

and next, that, since all his deeds of crime, audacity, treachery, lust, greed, cruelty are unheard and singular, a worthy outcome of such a life and deeds may follow him by your judgement; and that the commonwealth and my faith may be content with this one accusation of mine, and that hereafter it may rather be allowed me to defend the good than be necessary to accuse the dishonest.

deinde uti C. Verrem, si eius omnia sunt inaudita et singularia facinora sceleris, audaciae, perfidiae, libidinis, avaritiae, crudelitatis, dignus exitus eius modi vita atque factis vestro iudicio consequatur, utique res publica meaque fides una hac accusatione mea contenta sit, mihique posthac bonos potius defendere liceat quam improbos accusare necesse sit.

C icero by Claude

Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book V

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