That which was above all things to be desired, O judges, and which above all things
 was calculated to have the greatest influence towards allaying the unpopularity of
 your order, and putting an end to the discredit into which your judicial decisions
 have fallen, appears to have been thrown in your way, and given to you not by any
 human contrivance, but almost by the interposition of the gods, at a most important
 crisis of the republic. For an opinion has now become established, pernicious to us,
 and pernicious to the republic, which has been the common talk of every one, not
 only at Rome , but among foreign nations
 also,—that in the courts of law as they exist at present, no wealthy man, however
 guilty he may be, can possibly be convicted.

Now at this time of peril to your order and to your tribunals, when men are ready
 to attempt by harangues, and by the proposal of new laws, to increase the existing
 unpopularity of the senate, Caius Verres is brought to trial as a criminal, a man
 condemned in the opinion of every one by his life and actions, but acquitted by the
 enormousness of his wealth according to his own hope and boast. I, O judges, have
 undertaken this cause as prosecutor with the greatest good wishes and expectation on
 the part of the Roman people, not in order to increase the unpopularity of the
 senate, but to relieve it from the discredit which I share with it. For I have
 brought before you a man, by acting justly in whose case you have an opportunity of
 retrieving the lost credit of your judicial proceedings, of regaining your credit
 with the Roman people, and of giving satisfaction to foreign nations; a man, the
 embezzler of the public funds, the petty tyrant of Asia and Pamphylia , the
 robber who deprived the city of its rights, the disgrace and ruin of the province of
 Sicily .

And if you come to a decision about this man with severity and a due regard to
 your oaths, that authority which ought to remain in you will cling to you still; but
 if that man's vast riches shall break down the sanctity and honesty of the courts of
 justice, at least I shall achieve this, that it shall be plain that it was rather
 honest judgment that was wanting to the republic, than a criminal to the judges, or
 an accuser to the criminal. I, indeed, that I may confess to you the truth about myself, O judges, though
 many snares were laid for me by Caius Verres, both by land and sea, which I partly
 avoided by my own vigilance, and partly warded off by the zeal and kindness of my
 friends, yet I never seemed to be incurring so much danger, and I never was in such
 a state of great apprehension, as I am now in this very court of law.

Nor does the expectation which people have formed of my conduct of this
 prosecution, nor this concourse of so vast a multitude as is here assembled,
 influence me (though indeed I am greatly agitated by these circumstances) so much as
 his nefarious plots which he is endeavouring to lay at one and the same time against
 me, against you, against Marcus Gabrio the praetor, and against the allies, against
 foreign nations, against the senate, and even against the very name of senator;
 whose favourite saying it is that they have got to fear who have stolen only as much
 as is enough for themselves, but that he has stolen so much that it may easily be
 plenty for many; that nothing is so holy that it cannot be corrupted, or so strongly
 fortified that it cannot be stormed by money.

But if he were as secret in acting as he is audacious in attempting, perhaps in
 some particular he might some time or other have escaped our notice. But it happens
 very fortunately that to his incredible audacity there is joined a most unexampled
 folly. For as he was unconcealed in committing his robberies of money, so in his
 hope of corrupting the judges he has made his intentions and endeavours visible to
 every one. He says that once only in his life has he felt fear: at the time when he
 was first impeached as a criminal by me; because he was only lately arrived from his
 province, and was branded with unpopularity and infamy, not modern but ancient and
 of long standing; and, besides that, the time was unlucky, being very ill-suited for
 corrupting the judges.

Therefore, when I had demanded a very short time to prosecute my inquiries in
 Sicily , he found a man to ask for two
 days less to make investigations in Achaia ;
 
 not with any real intention of doing the same with his diligence and industry, that
 I have accomplished by my labour, and daily and nightly investigations. For the
 Achaean inquisitor never even arrived at Brundusium . I in fifty days so traveled over the whole of Sicily that I examined into the records and injuries
 of all the tribes and of all private individuals, so that it was easily visible to
 every one, that he had been seeking out a man not really for the purpose of bringing
 the defendant whom he accused to trial, but merely to occupy the time which ought to
 belong to me.

Now that most audacious and most senseless man thinks this. He is aware that I am
 come into court so thoroughly prepared and armed, that I shall fix all his thefts
 and crimes not only in your ears, but in the very eyes of all men. He sees that many
 senators are witnesses of his audacity, he sees that many Roman knights are so too,
 and many citizens, and many of the allies besides to whom he has done unmistakable
 injuries. He sees also that very numerous and very important deputations have come
 here at the same time from most friendly cities, armed with the public authority and
 evidence collected by their states.

And though this is the case, still he thinks so ill of all virtuous men, to such an
 extent does he believe the decisions of the senators to be corrupt and profligate,
 that he makes a custom of openly boasting that it was not without reason that he was
 greedy of money, since he now finds that there is such protection in money, and that
 he has bought (what was the hardest thing of all) the very time of his trial, in
 order to be able to buy everything else more easily; so that, as he could not by any
 possibility shirk the force of the accusations altogether, he might avoid the most
 violent gusts of the storm.

But if he had placed any hope at all, not only in his cause, but in any honourable
 defence, or in the eloquence or in the influence of any one, he would not be so
 eager in collecting and catching at all these things; he would not scorn and despise
 the senatorial body to such a degree, as to procure a man to be selected out of the
 senate at his will to be made a criminal of, who should plead his cause 
 before him, while he in the meantime was preparing whatever he had need of.

And what the circumstances are on which he founds his hopes, and what hopes he
 builds on them, and what he is fixing his mind on. I see clearly. But how he can
 have the confidence to think that he can effect anything with the present praetor,
 and the present bench of Judges, I cannot conceive. This one thing I know, which the
 Roman people perceived too when he rejected the judges, that his hopes were of that nature that he placed
 all his expectations of safety in his money; and that if this protection were taken
 from him, he thought nothing would be any help to him. In truth, what genius is there so
 powerful, what faculty of speaking, what eloquence so mighty, as to be in any
 particular able to defend the life of that man, convicted as it is of so many vices
 and crimes, and long since condemned by the inclinations and private sentiments of
 every one?

And, to say nothing of the stains and disgraces of his youth, what other remarkable
 event is there in his quaestorship, that first step to honour, except that Cnaeus
 Carbo was robbed by his quaestor of the public money? that the consul was plundered
 and betrayed? his army deserted? his province abandoned? the holy nature and
 obligations imposed on him by lot violated?—whose lieutenancy was the ruin of all Asia and Pamphylia , in which provinces he plundered many houses, very many
 cities, all the shrines and temples; when he renewed and repeated against Cnaeus
 Dolabella his ancient wicked tricks when he had been quaestor, and did not only in
 his danger desert, but even attack and betray the man to whom he had been
 lieutenant, and proquaestor, and whom he had brought into odium by his crimes;

—whose only praetorship was the destruction of the sacred temples and the public
 works, and, as to his legal decisions, was the adjudging and awarding of property
 contrary to all established rules and precedents. But now he has established great
 and numerous monuments and proofs of all his vices in the province of Sicily , which he for three years so harassed and
 ruined that it can by no possibility be restored to its former condition, and
 appears scarcely able to be at all recovered after a long series of years, and a
 long succession of virtuous praetors.

While this man was praetor the Sicilians enjoyed neither their own laws, nor the
 degrees of our senate, nor the common rights of every nation. Every one in
 Sicily has only so much left as either
 escaped the notice or was disregarded by the satiety of that most avaricious and
 licentious man. No legal
 decision for three years was given on any other ground but his will; no property was
 so secure to any man, even if it had descended to him from his father and
 grandfather, but he was deprived of it at his command; enormous sums of money were
 exacted from the property of the cultivators of the soil by a new and nefarious
 system. The most faithful of the allies were classed in the number of enemies. Roman
 citizens were tortured and put to death like slaves; the greatest criminals were
 acquitted in the courts of justice through bribery; the most upright and honourable
 men, being prosecuted while absent, were condemned and banished without being heard
 in their own defence; the most fortified harbours, the greatest and strongest
 cities, were laid open to pirates and robbers; the sailors and soldiers of the Sicilians,
 our own allies and friends, died of hunger; the best built fleets on the most
 important stations were lost and destroyed, to the great disgrace of the Roman
 people.

This same man while praetor plundered and stripped those most ancient monuments,
 some erected by wealthy monarchs and intended by them as ornaments for their cities;
 some, too, the work of our own generals, which they either gave or restored as
 conquerors to the different states in Sicily . And he did this not only in the case of public statues and
 ornaments, but he also plundered all the temples consecrated in the deepest
 religious feelings of the people. He did not leave, in short, one god to the
 Sicilians which appeared to him to be made in a tolerably workmanlike manner, and
 with any of the skill of the ancients. I am prevented by actual shame from speaking
 of his nefarious licentiousness as shown in rapes and other such enormities; and I
 am unwilling also to increase the distress of those men who have been unable to
 preserve their children and their wives unpolluted by his wanton lust.

But, you will say, these things were done by him in such a manner as not to be
 notorious to all men. I think there is no man who has heard his name who cannot also
 relate wicked actions of his; so that I ought rather to be afraid of being thought
 to omit many of his crimes, than to invent any charges against him. And indeed I do
 not think that this multitude which has collected to listen to me wishes so much to
 learn of me what the facts of the case are, as to go over it with me, refreshing its
 recollection of what it knows already. And as this is the case, that senseless and profligate man attempts
 to combat me in another manner. He does not seek to oppose the eloquence of any one
 also to me, he does not rely on the popularity, or influence, or authority of any
 one. He pretends that he trusts to these things; but I see what he is really aiming
 at; (and indeed he is not acting with any concealment.) He sets before me empty
 titles of nobility, that is to say the names of arrogant men, who do not hinder me
 so much by being noble, as assist me by being notorious,—he pretends to rely on
 their protection; when he has in reality been contriving something else this long
 time.

What hope he now has, and what he is endeavouring to do, I will now briefly explain
 to you, O judges. But first of all, remark, I beg you, how the matter has been
 arranged by him from the beginning. When he first returned from the province, he
 endeavoured to get rid of this prosecution by corrupting the judges at a great
 expense; and this object he continued to keep in view till the conclusion of the
 appointment of the judges. After the judges were appointed—because in drawing lots
 for them the fortune of the Roman people had defeated his hopes, and because in
 rejecting some, my diligence had defeated his impudence—the whole attempt at bribery
 was abandoned.

The affair was going on admirably; lists of your names and of the whole tribunal
 were in every one's hands. It did not seem possible to mark the votes 
 of these men with any distinguishing mark or colour or spot of dirt; and that
 fellow, from having been brisk and in high spirits, became on a sudden so downcast
 and humbled, that he seemed to be condemned not only by the Roman people but even by
 himself. But lo! all of a sudden, within these few days, since the consular comitia
 have taken place, he has gone back to his original plan with more
 money, and the same plots are now laid against your reputation and against the
 fortunes of every one, by the instrumentality of the same people; which fact at
 first, O judges, was pointed out to me by a very slight hint and indication; but
 afterwards, when my suspicions were once aroused, I arrived at the knowledge of all
 the most secret counsels of that party without any mistake.

For as Hortensius the consul elect was being attended home again from the Campus by
 a great concourse and multitude of people, Caius Curio fell in with that multitude
 by chance,—a man whom I wish to name by way of honour rather than of disparagement.
 I will tell you what, if he had been unwilling to have it mentioned, he would not
 have spoken of in so large an assembly so openly and undisguisedly; which, however,
 shall be mentioned by me deliberately and cautiously, that it may be seen that I pay
 due regard to our friendship and to his dignity.

He sees Verres in the crowd by the arch of Fabius; he speaks to the man, and with a loud voice congratulates him
 on his victory. He does not say a word to Hortensius himself, who had been made
 consul, or to his friends and relations who were present attending on him; but he
 stops to speak to this man, embraces him, and bids him cast off all anxiety. “I give
 you notice,” said he, “that you have been acquitted by this day's comitia.” And as
 many most honourable men heard this, it is immediately reported to me; indeed, every
 one who saw me mentioned it to me the first thing. To some it appeared scandalous,
 to others ridiculous; ridiculous to those who thought that this cause depended on
 the credibility of the witnesses, on the importance of the charges, and on the power
 of the judges, and not on the consular comitia; scandalous to those who looked
 deeper, and who thought that this congratulation had reference to the corruption of
 the judge.

In truth, they argued in this manner—the most honourable men spoke to one another
 and to me in this manner—that there were now manifestly and undeniably no courts of
 justice at all. The very criminal who the day before thought that he was already
 condemned, is acquitted now that his defender has been made consul. What are we to
 think then? Will it avail nothing that all Sicily , all the Sicilians, that all the merchants who have business
 in that country, that all public and private documents are now at Rome ? Nothing, if the consul elect wills it
 otherwise. What! will not the judges be influenced by the accusation, by the
 evidence, by the universal opinion of the Roman people? No. Everything will be
 governed by the power and authority of one man. I will speak the truth, O judges. This thing agitated
 me greatly; for every good man was speaking in this way—“That fellow will be taken
 out of your hands; but we shall not preserve our judicial authority much longer; for
 who, when Verres is acquitted, will be able to make any objection to transferring it
 from us?”

It was a grievous thing to every one, and the sudden elation of that profligate man
 did not weigh with them as much as that fresh congratulation of a very honourable
 one. I wished to dissemble my own vexation at it; I wished to conceal my own grief
 of mind under a cheerful countenance, and to bury it in silence. But lo! on the very
 days when the praetors elected were dividing their duties by lot, and when it fell
 to the share of Marcus Metellus to hold trials concerning extortion, information is
 given me that that fellow was receiving such congratulations, that he also sent men
 home to announce it to his wife.

And this too in truth displeased me; and yet I was not quite aware what I had so
 much to fear from this allotment of the praetor's duties. But I ascertained this one
 thing from trustworthy men from whom I received all my intelligence; that many
 chests full of Sicilian money had been sent by some senator to a Roman knight, and
 that of these about ten chests had been left at that senator's house, with the
 statement that they were left to be used in the comitia when I expected to be
 elected aedile, and that men to distribute this money among all the tribes had been
 summoned to attend him by night.

Of whom one, who thought himself under the greatest obligations to me, came to me
 that same night; reports to me the speech which that fellow had addressed to them;
 that he had reminded them how liberally he had treated them formerly when he was
 candidate for the praetorship, and at the last consular and praetorian comitia; and
 in the second place that he had promised them immediately whatever money they
 required, if they could procure my rejection from the aedileship. That on this some
 of them said that they did not dare attempt it; that others answered that they did
 not think it could be managed; but that one bold friend was found, a man of the same
 family as himself, Quintus Verres, of the Romilian tribe, of the most perfect school
 of bribers, the pupil and friend of Verres' father, who promised that, if five
 hundred thousand sesterces were provided, he would
 manage it; and that there were some others who said that they would cooperate with
 him. And as this was the case, he warned me beforehand with a friendly disposition,
 to take great care.

I was disquieted about many most important matters at one and the same moment, and
 with very little time to deliberate. The comitia were at hand; and at them I was to
 be opposed at immense expenditure of money. This trial was at hand; the Sicilian
 treasurers menaced that matter also. I was afraid, from apprehension about the
 comitia, to conduct the matters relating to the trial with freedom; and because of
 the trial, I was unable to attend with all my heart to my canvass. Threatening the
 agents of bribery was out of the question, because I saw that they were aware that I
 was hampered and fettered by this trial.

And at this same moment I hear that notice has been given to the Sicilians by
 Hortensius to come to speak to him at his house; that the Sicilians behaved in that
 matter with a proper sense of their own liberty, and, when they understood on what
 account they were sent for, they would not go. In the meantime my comitia began to
 be held; of which that fellow thought himself the master, as he had been of all the
 other comitia this year. He began to run about, that influential man, with his son,
 a youth of engaging and popular manners, among the tribes. The son began to address
 and to call on all the friends of his father, that is to say, all his agents for
 bribery; and when this was noticed and perceived, the Roman people took care with
 the most earnest goodwill that I should not be deprived of my honour through the
 money of that man, whose riches had not been able to make me violate my good
 faith.

After that I was released from that great anxiety about my canvass, I began, with a
 mind much more unoccupied and much more at ease, to think of nothing and to do
 nothing except what related to this trial. I find, O judges, these plans formed and
 begun to be put in execution by them, to protract the matter, whatever steps it
 might be necessary to take in order to do so, so that the cause might be pleaded
 before Marcus Metellus as praetor. That by doing so they would have these
 advantages; firstly, that Marcus Metellus was most friendly to them; secondly, that
 not only would Hortensius be consul, but Quintus Metellus also: and listen while I
 show you how great a friend he is to them. For he gave him a token of his goodwill
 of such a sort, that he seemed to be giving it as a return for the suffrages of the tribes
 which he had scoured to him.

Did you think that I would say nothing of such serious matters as these? and that,
 at a crisis of such danger to the republic and my own character, I would consult
 anything rather than my duty and my dignity? The other consul elect sent for the
 Sicilians; some came, because Lucius Metellus was praetor in Sicily . To them he speaks in this manner: that he is
 the consul; that one of his brothers has Sicily for his province; that the other is to be judge in all
 prosecutions for extortion; and that care had been taken in many ways that there
 should be no possibility of Verres being injured.

I ask you, Metellus, what is corrupting the course of justice, if this is not,—to
 seek to frighten witnesses, and especially Sicilians, timid and oppressed men, not
 only by your own private influence, but by their fear of the consul, and by the
 power of two praetors? What would you do for an innocent man or for a relation, when
 for the sake of a most guilty man, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from
 your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly saying to appear true to
 any one who is not acquainted with you?

For they said that Verres said, that you had not been made consul by destiny, as
 the rest of your family had been, but by his assistance. Two consuls, therefore, and
 the judge are to be such because of his will. We shall not only, says he, avoid
 having a man too scrupulous in investigating, too subservient to the opinion of the
 people, Marcus Glabrio, but we shall have this advantage also:—Marcus Caesonius is
 the judge, the colleague of our accuser a man of tried and proved experience in the
 decision of actions. It will never do for us to have such a man as that on the
 bench, which we are endeavouring to corrupt by some means or other; for before, when
 he was one of the Judges on the tribunal of which Junius 
 was president, he was not only very indignant at that shameful transaction, but he
 even betrayed and denounced it. After the first of January we shall not have this
 man for our judge,—

we shall not have Quintus Manlius and Quintus Cornificius, two most severe and
 upright judges, for judges, because they will then be tribunes of the people.
 Publius Sulpicius, a solemn and upright judge, must enter on his magistracy on the
 fifth of November. Marcus Crepereius, of that renowned equestrian family and of that
 incorruptible character; Lucius Cassius, of a family renowned for its severity in
 all things, and especially as judges; Cnaeus Tremellius, a man of the greatest
 scrupulousness and diligence;—these three men of ancient strictness of principle are
 all military tribunes elect. After the first of January they will not be able to act
 as judges. And besides this, we elect by lot a successor in the room of Marcus
 Metellus, since he is to preside over this very trial. And so after the first of
 January, the praetor, and almost the whole bench of judges being changed, we shall
 elude the terrible threats of the prosecutor, and the great expectations entertained
 of this trial, and manage it according to our own will and pleasure.

Today is the fifth of August. You began to assemble at the ninth hour. This day
 they do not even count. There are ten days between this and the votive games which
 Cnaeus Pompeius is going to celebrate. These games will take up fifteen days; then
 immediately the Roman games will follow. And so, when nearly forty days have
 intervened, then at length they think they shall have to answer what has been said
 by us; and they think that, what with speeches, and what with excuses, they will
 easily be able to protract the cause till the period of the games of Victory. With
 these the plebeian games are connected, after which there will be either no day at
 all, or very few for pleading in. And so, when the accusation has got stale and
 cold, the matter will come all fresh before Marcus Metellus as praetor. And if I had
 distrusted his good faith, I should not have retained him as a judge.

But now I have such an opinion of him, that I would rather this matter was brought
 to a close while he is judge than while he is praetor; and I would rather entrust to
 him his own tablet while he is on his oath, than the tablets of others when he is
 restrained by no such obligation. Now, O judges, I consult you as to what you think I ought to do. For
 you will, in truth, without speaking, give me that advice which I understand that I
 must inevitably adopt. If I occupy the time which I legitimately might in speaking,
 I shall reap the fruit of my labour, industry, and diligence; and by this
 prosecution I shall make it manifest that no one in the memory of man appears ever
 to have come before a court of justice better prepared, more vigilant, or with his
 cause better got up. But while I am getting this credit for my industry, there is
 great danger lest the criminal may escape. What, then, is there which can be done? I
 think it is neither obscure nor hidden.

I will reserve for another time that fruit of praise which may be derived from a
 long uninterrupted speech. At present I must support this accusation by documentary
 evidence, by witnesses, by letters of private individuals and of public bodies, and
 by various other kinds of proof. The whole of this contest is between you and me, O
 Hortensius. I will speak openly. If I thought that you were contending with me in
 the matter of speaking, and of getting rid of the charges I bring against your
 client in this cause, I, too, would devote much pains to mounting an elaborate
 accusation, and to dilating on my charges. Now, since you have determined to contend
 against me with artifice, not so much in obedience to the promptings of your own
 nature, as from consulting his occasions and his cause, it is necessary for me to
 oppose conduct of that sort with prudence.

Your plan is, to begin to answer me after two sets of games have been celebrated;
 mine is to have the adjournment over before the first series. And the result will be,
 that that plan of yours will be thought crafty, but this determination of mine
 necessary. But as for
 what I had begun to say,—namely, that the contest is between you and me, this is
 it,—I, when I had undertaken this cause at the request of the Sicilians, and had
 thought it a very honourable and glorious thing for me that they were willing to
 make experiment of my integrity and diligence, who already knew by experience my
 innocence and temperance: then, when I had undertaken this business, I proposed to
 myself some greater action also by which the Roman people should be able to see my
 goodwill towards the republic.

For that seemed to me to be by no means worthy of my industry and efforts, for that
 man to be brought to trial by me who had been already condemned by the judgment of
 all men, unless that intolerable influence of yours, and that grasping nature which
 you have displayed for some years in many trials, was interposed also in the case of
 that desperate man. But no, since all this dominion and sovereignty of yours over
 the courts of justice delights you so much, and since there are some men who are
 neither ashamed of their licentiousness and their infamy, nor weary of it, and who,
 as if on purpose, seem to wish to encounter hatred and unpopularity from the Roman
 people, I profess that I have undertaken this,—a great burden perhaps, and one
 dangerous to myself, but still worthy of my applying myself to it with all the
 vigour of my age, and all diligence.

And since the whole order of the senate is weighed down by the discredit brought on
 it by the wickedness and audacity of a few, and is overwhelmed by the infamy of the
 tribunals, I profess myself an enemy to this race of men, an accuser worthy of their
 hatred, a persevering, a bitter adversary. I arrogate this to myself, I claim this
 for myself, and I will carry out this enmity in my magistracy, and from that post in
 which the Roman people has willed that from the next first of January I shall act in
 concert with it in matters concerning the republic, and concerning wicked men. I
 promise the Roman people that this shall be the most honourable and the fairest
 employment of my aedileship. I warn, I forewarn, I give notice beforehand to those
 men who are wont either to put money down, to undertake for others, to receive
 money, or to promise money, or to act as agents in bribery, or as go-betweens in
 corrupting the seat of judgment, and who have promised their influence or their
 impudence in aid of such a business, in this trial to keep their hands and
 inclinations from this nefarious wickedness.

Hortensius will then be consul with the chief command and authority, but I shall be
 aedile—that is, I shall be a little more than a private individual; and yet this
 business, which I promise that I am going to advocate, is of such a nature, so
 pleasing and agreeable to the Roman people, that the consul himself will appear in
 this cause, if that be possible, even less than a private individual in comparison
 of me. All those things shall not only be mentioned, but even, where certain matters
 have been explained, shall be fully discussed, which for the last ten years, ever
 since the office of the judge has been transferred to the senate, has been
 nefariously and wickedly done in the decision of judicial matters.

The Roman people shall know from me why it is that when the equestrian body
 supplied the judges for nearly fifty years together, not even the slightest
 suspicion ever arose of bribes having been accepted for the purpose of influencing a
 decision; why it is, I say, when the judicial authority was transferred to the
 senatorial body, and the power of the Roman
 people over every one of us was taken away, Quintus Calidius, when he was condemned,
 said that a man of praetorian rank could not honestly be condemned at a less price
 than three hundred thousand sesterces ; why it is
 that when Publius Septimius, a senator, was condemned for extortion, when Quintus
 Hortensius was praetor, damages were assessed against him, including money which he
 had received as judge to decide causes which came before him;

why it is, that in the case of Caius Herennius, and in that of Caius Popillius,
 senators, both of whom were convicted of peculation—why it is, that in the case of
 Marcus Atilius, who was convicted of treason—this was made plain,—that they had all
 received money for the purpose of influencing their judicial decisions; why it is,
 that senators have been found who, when Caius Verres, as praetor of the city, gave
 out the lots, voted against the criminal whom they were condemning without having
 inquired into his case; why it is, that a senator was found who, when he was judge,
 took money in one and the same trial both from the defendant to distribute among the
 judges, and from the accuser to condemn the defendant.

But how shall I adequately complain of that stain, that disgrace, that calamity of
 the whole senatorial order,—that this thing actually happened in the city while the
 senatorial order furnished the judges, that the votes of men on their oaths were
 marked by coloured tablets? I pledge myself that I will urge all these things with
 diligence and with strictness. And what do you suppose will be my thoughts, if I find in this very
 trial any violation of the laws committed in any similar manner? especially when I
 can prove by many witnesses that Caius Verres often said in Sicily , in the hearing of many persons, “that he had
 a powerful friend, in confidence in whom he was plundering the province; and that he
 was not seeking money for himself alone, but that he had so distributed the three
 years of his Sicilian praetorship, that he should say he did exceedingly well, if he
 appropriated the gains of one year to the augmentation of his own property, those of
 the second year to his patrons and defenders, and reserved the whole of the third
 year, the most productive and gainful of all, for the judges.”

From which it came into my mind to say that which, when I had said lately before
 Marcus Glabrio at the time of striking the list of judges, I perceived the Roman
 people greatly moved by; that I thought that foreign nations would send ambassadors
 to the Roman people to procure the abrogation of the law, and of all trials, about
 extortion; for if there were no trials, they think that each man would only plunder
 them of as much as he would think sufficient for himself and his children; but now,
 because there are trials of that sort, every one carries off as much as it will take
 to satisfy himself, his patrons, his advocates, the praetor, and the judges; and
 that this is an enormous sum; that they may be able to satisfy the cupidity of one
 most avaricious man, but are quite unable to incur the expense of his most guilty
 victory over the laws.

O trials worthy of being recorded! O splendid reputation of our order! when the
 allies of the Roman people are unwilling that trials for extortion should take
 place, which were instituted by our ancestors for the sake of the allies. Would that
 man ever have had a favourable hope of his own safety, if he had not conceived in
 his mind a bad opinion of you? on which account, he ought, if possible, to be still
 more hated by you than he is by the Roman people, because he considers you like
 himself in avarice and wickedness and perjury.

And I beg you, in the name of the immortal gods, O judges, think of and guard
 against this; I warn you, I give notice to you, of what I am well assured, that this
 most seasonable opportunity has been given to you by the favour of the gods, for the
 purpose of delivering your whole order from hatred, from unpopularity, from infamy,
 and from disgrace. There is no severity believed to exist ill the tribunals, nor any
 scruples with regard to religion; in short, there are not believed to be any
 tribunals at all. Therefore we are despised and scorned by the Roman people; we are
 branded with a heavy and now a long standing infamy.

Nor, in fact, is there any other reason for which the Roman people has with so much
 earnestness sought the restoration of the tribunician power: but when it was
 demanding that in words, it seemed to be asking for that, but in reality it was
 asking for tribunes which it could trust. And this did not escape the notice of
 Quintus Catulus, a most sagacious and honourable man, who, when Cnaeus Pompeius, a
 most gallant and illustrious man, made a motion about the tribunitian power, and
 when he was asked his opinion, begin his speech in this manner, speaking with the
 greatest authority, “that the conscript fathers presided over the courts of justice
 badly and wickedly; but if in deciding judicial trials they had been willing to
 satisfy the expectations of the Roman people, men would not so greatly regret the
 tribunitian power?”

Lastly, when Cnaeus Pompeius himself, when first he delivered an address to the
 people as consul elect, mentioned (what seemed above all things to be watched for)
 that he would restore the power of the tribunes, a great shout was raised at his
 words, and a grateful murmur pervaded the assembly. And when he had said also in the
 same assembly “that the provinces were depopulated and tyrannised over, that the
 courts of justice were become base and wicked, and that he desired to provide for
 and to remedy that evil,” the Roman people then signified their good will, not with
 a shout, but with a universal uproar.

But now men are on the watch towers; they observe how every one of you behaves
 himself in respecting religion and in preserving the laws. They see that, ever since
 the passing of the law for restoring the power of the tribunes, only one senator,
 and he too a very insignificant one, has been condemned. And though they do nor blame this, yet they
 have nothing which they can very much commend. For there is no credit in being
 upright in a case where there is no one who is either able or who endeavours to
 corrupt one.

This is a trial in which you will be deciding about the defendant, the Roman people
 about you;—by the example of what happens to this man it will be determined whether,
 when senators are the judges, a very guilty and a very rich man can be condemned.
 Moreover, he is a criminal of such a sort, that there is absolutely nothing whatever
 in him except the greatest crimes, and excessive riches; so that if he be acquitted,
 no other opinion can be formed of the matter except that which is the most
 discreditable possible. Such numerous and enormous vices as his will not be
 considered to have been canceled by influence, by family connection, by some things
 which may have been done well, or even by the minor vices of flattery and
 subservience.

In short, I will conduct the cause in this manner; I will bring forward things of
 such a sort, so well known, so proved by evidence, so important, and so undeniable,
 that no one shall venture to use his influence to obtain from you the acquittal of
 that man; for I have a sure path and method by which I can investigate and become
 acquainted with all their endeavours. The matter will be so managed by me that not
 only the ears but even the eyes of the Roman people shall seem to be present at all
 their counsels.

You have in your power to remove and to eradicate the disgrace and infamy which has
 now for many years attached to your order. It is evident to all men, that since
 these tribunals have been established which we now have, there has never been a
 bench of judges of the same splendour and dignity as this. If anything is done wrongly in this case, all
 men will think not that other more capable judges should be appointed of the same
 order of men, which is not possible; but that another order must be sought for, from
 which to select the judges for the future.

On which account, in the first place, I beg this of the immortal gods, which I seem
 to myself to have hopes of too, that in this trial no one may be found to be wicked
 except him who has long since been found to be such; secondly, if there are many
 wicked men, I promise this to you, O judges, I promise this to the Roman people,
 that my life shall fail rather than my vigour and perseverance in prosecuting their
 iniquity.

But that iniquity, which, if it should be committed, I promise to prosecute
 severely, with however much trouble and danger to myself, and whatever enmities I
 may bring on myself by so doing, you, O Marcus Glabrio, can guard against ever
 taking place by your wisdom, and authority, and diligence. Do you undertake the
 cause of the tribunals. Do you undertake the cause of impartiality, of integrity, of
 good faith and of religion. Do you undertake the cause of the senate; that, being
 proved worthy by its conduct in this trial, it may come into favour and popularity
 with the Roman people. Think who you are, and in what a situation you are placed;
 what you ought to give to the Roman people, what you ought to repay to your
 ancestors. Let the recollection of the Acilian law passed by your father occur to
 your mind, owing to which law the Roman people has had this advantage of most
 admirable decisions and very strict judges in cases of extortion.

High authorities surround you which will not suffer you to forget your family
 credit; which will remind you day and night that your father was a most brave man,
 your grandfather a most wise one, and your father-in-law a most worthy man.
 Wherefore, if you have inherited the vigour and energy of your father Glabrio in
 resisting audacious men; if you have inherited the prudence of your grandfather
 Scaevola in foreseeing intrigues which are prepared against your fame and that of
 your fellow-judges; if you have any share of the constancy of your father-in-law
 Scaurus, so that no one can move you from your genuine and deliberate opinion, the
 Roman people will understand that with an upright and honourable praetor, and a
 carefully selected bench of judges, abundance of wealth has more influence in
 bringing a criminal into suspicion, than in contributing to his safety.

I am resolved not to permit the praetor or the judges to be hanged in this cause. I
 will not permit the matter to be delayed till the lictors of the consuls can go and
 summon the Sicilians, whom the servants of the consuls elect did not influence
 before, when by an unprecedented course of proceeding they sent for them all; I will
 not permit those miserable men, formerly the allies and friends of the Roman people,
 now their slaves and suppliants, to lose not only their rights and fortunes by their
 tyranny, but to be deprived of even the power of bewailing their condition;

I will not, I say, when the cause has been summed up by me, permit them after a
 delay of forty days has intervened, then at last to reply to me when my accusation
 has already fallen into oblivion through lapse of time; I will not permit the
 decision to be given when this crowd collected from all Italy has departed from Rome , which has assembled from all quarters at the same time on
 account of the comitia, of the games, and of the census. The reward of the credit
 gained by your decision, or the danger arising from the unpopularity which will
 accrue to you if you decide unjustly, I think ought to belong to you; the labour and
 anxiety to me; the knowledge of what is done and the recollection of what has been
 said by every one, to all.

I will adopt this course, not an unprecedented one, but one that has been adopted
 before, by those who are now the chief men of our state,—the course, I mean, of at
 once producing the witnesses. What you will find novel, O judges, is this, that I
 will so marshal my witnesses as to unfold the whole of my accusation; that when I
 have established it by examining my witnesses, by arguments, and by my speech, then
 I shall show the agreement of the evidence with my accusation: so that there shall
 be no difference between the established mode of prosecuting, and this new one,
 except that, according to the established mode, when everything has been said which
 is to be said, then the witnesses are produced; here they shall be produced as each
 count is brought forward; so that the other side shall have the same opportunity of
 examining them, of arguing and making speeches or their evidence. If there be any
 one who prefers an uninterrupted speech and the old mode of conducting a prosecution
 without any break, he shall have it in some other trial. But for this time let him
 understand that what we do is done by us on compulsion, (for we only do it with the
 design of opposing the artifice of the opposite party by our prudence.)

This will be the first part of the prosecution. We say that Caius Verres has not
 only done many licentious acts, many cruel ones, towards Roman citizens, and towards
 some of the allies, many wicked acts against both gods and men; but especially that
 he has taken away four hundred thousand sesterces 
 out of Sicily contrary to the laws. We will
 make this so plain to you by witnesses, by private documents, and by public records
 that you shall decide that, even if we had abundant space and leisure days for
 making a long speech without any inconvenience, still there was no need at all of a
 long speech in this matter.

I think that no one of you, O judges, is ignorant that for these many days the
 discourse of the populace, and the opinion of the Roman people, has been that Caius
 Verres would not appear a second time before the bench to reply to my charges, and
 would not again present himself in court; And this idea had not got about merely
 because he had deliberately determined and resolved not to appear, but because no
 one believed that any one would be so audacious, so frantic, and so impudent, as,
 after having been convicted of such nefarious crimes, and by so many witnesses, to
 venture to present himself to the eyes of the judges, or to show his face to the
 Roman people.

But he is the same Verres that he always was; as he was abandoned enough to dare,
 so he is hardened enough to listen to anything. He is present; he replies to us; he
 makes his defence. He does not even leave himself this much of character, to be
 supposed, by being silent and keeping out of the way when he is so visibly convicted
 of the most infamous conduct, to have sought for a modest escape for his impudence.
 I can endure this, O judges, and I am not vexed that I am to receive the reward of
 my labours, and you the reward of your virtue. For if he had done what he at first
 determined to, that is, had not appeared, it would have been somewhat less known
 than is desirable for me what pains I had taken in preparing and arranging this
 prosecution: and your praise, O judges, would have been exceedingly slight and
 little heard of.

For this is not what the Roman people is expecting from you, nor what it can be
 contented with,—namely, for a man to be condemned who refuses to appear, and for you
 to act with resolution in the case of a man whom nobody has dared to defend. Aye,
 let him appear, let him reply; let him be defended with the utmost influence and the
 utmost zeal of the most powerful men, let my diligence have to contend with the
 covetousness of all of them, your integrity with his riches, the consistency of the
 witnesses with the threats and power of his patrons. Then indeed those things will
 be seen to be overcome when they have come to the contest and to the struggle. But
 if he had been condemned in his absence, he would have appeared not so much to have
 consulted his own advantage as to have grudged you your credit.

For neither can there be any greater safety for the republic imagined at this
 time, than for the Roman people to understand that, if all unworthy judges are
 carefully rejected by the accusers, the allies, the laws, and the republic can be
 thoroughly defended by a bench of judges chosen from the senators; nor can any such
 injury to the fortunes of all happen, as for all regard for truth, for integrity,
 for good faith, and for religion to be, in the opinion of the Roman people, cast
 aside by the senatorial body.

And therefore, I seem to myself, O judges, to have undertaken to uphold an
 important, and very failing, and almost neglected part of the republic, and by so
 doing to be acting not more for the benefit of my own reputation than of yours. For
 I have come forward to diminish the unpopularity of the courts of justice, and to
 remove the reproaches which are levelled at them; in order that, when this cause has
 been decided according to the wish of the Roman people, the authority of the courts
 of justice may appear to have been re-established in some degree by my diligence;
 and in order that this matter may be so decided that an end may be put at length to
 the controversy about the tribunals;

and, indeed, beyond all question, O judges, that matter depends on your decision
 in this cause. For the criminal is most guilty. And if he be condemned, men will
 cease to say that money is all powerful with the present tribunal; but if he be
 acquitted we shall cease to be able to make any objection to transferring the
 tribunal to another body. Although that fellow has not in reality any hope, nor the
 Roman people any fear of his acquittal, there are some men who do marvel at his
 singular impudence in being present, in replying to the accusations brought against
 him; but to me even this does not appear marvellous in comparison with his other
 actions of audacity and madness. For he has done many impious and nefarious actions
 both against gods and men; by the punishment for which crimes he is now disquieted
 and driven out of his mind and out of his senses.

The punishments of Roman citizens are driving him mad, some of whom he has
 delivered to the executioner, others he has put to death in prison, others he has
 crucified while demanding their rights as freemen and as Roman citizens. The gods of
 his fathers are hurrying him away to punishment, because he alone has been found to
 lead to execution sons torn from the embraces of their fathers, and to demand of
 parents payment for leave to bury their sons. The reverence due to, and the holy
 ceremonies practiced in, every shrine and every temple—but all violated by him; and
 the images of the gods, which have not only been taken away from their temples, but
 which are even lying in darkness, having been cast aside and thrown away by him—do
 not allow his mind to rest free from frenzy and madness.

Nor does he appear to me merely to offer himself to condemnation, nor to be
 content with the common punishment of avarice, when he has involved himself in so
 many atrocities; his savage and monstrous nature wishes for some extraordinary
 punishment. It is not alone demanded that, by his condemnation, their property may
 be restored to those from whom it has been taken away; but the insults offered to
 the religion of the immortal gods must be expiated, and the tortures of Roman
 citizens, and the blood of many innocent men, must be atoned for by that man's
 punishment.

For we have brought before your tribunal not only a thief, but a wholesale robber;
 not only an adulterer, but a ravisher of chastity; not only a sacrilegious man, but
 an open enemy to all sacred things and all religion; not only an assassin, but a
 most barbarous murderer of both citizens and allies; so that I think him the only
 criminal in the memory of man so atrocious, that it is even for his own good to be
 condemned. For who is
 there who does not see this, that though he be acquitted, against the will of gods
 and men, yet that he cannot possibly be taken out of the hands of the Roman people?
 Who does not see that it would be an excellent thing for us in that case, if the
 Roman people were content with the punishment of that one criminal alone, and did
 not decide that he had not committed any greater wickedness against them when he
 plundered temples, when he murdered so many innocent men, when he destroyed Roman
 citizens by execution, by torture, by the cross,—when he released leaders of
 banditti for bribes,—than they, who, when on their oaths, acquitted a man covered
 with so many, with such enormous, with such unspeakable wickednesses?

There is, there is, O judges, no room for any one to err in respect of this man.
 He is not such a criminal, this is not such a time, this is not such a tribunal, (I
 fear to seem to say anything too arrogant before such men,) even the advocate is not
 such a man, that a criminal so guilty, so abandoned, so plainly convicted, can be
 either stealthily or openly snatched out of his hands with impunity. When such men
 as these are judges, shall I not be able to prove that Caius Verres has taken bribes
 contrary to the laws? Will such men venture to assert that they have not believed so
 many senators, so many Roman knights, so many cities, so many men of the highest
 honour from so illustrious a province, so many letters of whole nations and of
 private individuals? that they have resisted so general a wish of the Roman people?

Let them venture. We will find, if we are able to bring that fellow alive before
 another tribunal, men to whom we can prove that he in his quaestorship embezzled the
 public money which was given to Cnaeus Carbo the consul; men whom we can persuade
 that he got money under false pretences from the quaestors of the city, as you have
 learnt in my former pleadings. There will be some men, too, who will blame his
 boldness in having released some of the contractors from supplying the corn due to
 the public, when they could make it for his own interest. There will even, perhaps,
 be some men who will think that robbery of his most especially to be punished, when
 he did not hesitate to carry off out of the most holy temples and out of the cities
 of our allies and friends, the monuments of Marcus Marcellus and of Publius
 Africanus, which in name indeed belonged to them, but in reality both belonged and
 were always considered to belong to the Roman people.

Suppose he has escaped from the court about peculation. Let him think of the
 generals of the enemy, for whose release he has accepted bribes; let him consider
 what answer he can make about those men whom he has left in his own house to
 substitute in their places; let him consider
 not only how he can get over our accusation, but also how he can remedy his own
 confession. Let him recollect that, in the former pleadings, being excited by the
 adverse and hostile shouts of the Roman people, he confessed that he had not caused
 the leaders of the pirates to be executed; and that he was afraid even then that it
 would be imputed to him that he had released them for money. Let him confess that,
 which cannot be denied, that he, as a private individual, kept the leaders of the
 pirates alive and unhurt in his own house, after he had returned to Rome , as long as he could do so for me. If in the
 case of such a prosecution for treason it was lawful for him to do so, I will admit
 that it was proper. Suppose he escapes from this accusation also; I will proceed to
 that point to which the Roman people has long been inviting me.

For it thinks that the decision concerning the rights to freedom and to
 citizenship belong to itself; and it thinks rightly. Let that fellow, forsooth,
 break down with his evidence the intentions of the senators—let him force his way
 through the questions of all men—let him make his escape from your severity; believe
 me, he will be held by much tighter chains in the hands of the Roman people. The
 Roman people will give credit to those Roman knights who, when they were produced as
 witnesses before you originally, said that a Roman citizen, one who was offering
 honourable men as his bail, was crucified by him in their sight.

The whole of the thirty-five tribes will believe a most honourable and
 accomplished man, Marcus Annius, who said, that when he was present, a Roman citizen
 perished by the hand of the executioner. That most admirable man Lucius Flavius, a
 Roman knight, will be listened to by the Roman people, who gave in evidence that his
 intimate friend Herennius, a merchant from Africa , though more than a hundred Roman citizens at Syracuse knew him, and defended him in tears,
 was put to death by the executioner. Lucius Suetius, a man endowed with every
 accomplishment, speaks to them with an honesty and authority and conscientious
 veracity which they must trust; and he said on his oath before you that many Roman
 citizens had been most cruelly put to death, with every circumstance of violence, in
 his stone-quarries. When I am conducting this cause for the sake of the Roman people
 from this rostrum, I have no fear that either any violence can be able to save him
 from the votes of the Roman people, or that any labour undertaken by me in my
 aedileship can be considered more honourable or more acceptable by the Roman people.

Let, therefore, every one at this trial attempt everything. There is no mistake
 now which any one can make in this cause, O judges, which will not be made at your
 risk. My own line of conduct, as it is already known to you in what is past, is also
 provided for, and resolved on, in what is to come. I displayed my zeal for the
 republic at that time, when, after a long interval, I reintroduced the old custom,
 and at the request of the allies and friends of the Roman people, who were, however,
 my own most intimate connections, prosecuted a most audacious man. And this action
 of mine most virtuous and accomplished men (in which number many of you were)
 approved of to such a degree, that they refused the man who had been his quaestor,
 and who, having been offended by him, wished to prosecute his own quarrel against
 him, leave not only to prosecute the man himself, but even back the accusation
 against him, when he himself begged to do so.

I went into Sicily for the sake of
 inquiring into the business, in which occupation the celerity of my return showed my
 industry; the multitude of documents and witnesses which I brought with me declared
 my diligence; and I further showed my moderation and scrupulousness, in that when I
 had arrived as a senator among the allies of the Roman people, having been quaestor
 in that province, I, though the defender of the common cause of them all, lodged
 rather with my own hereditary friends and connections, than those who had sought
 that assistance from me. My arrival was no trouble nor expense to any one, either
 publicly or privately. I used in the inquiry just as much power as the law gave me,
 not as much as I might have had through the zeal of those men whom that fellow had
 oppressed.

When I returned to Rome from Sicily , when he and his friends, luxurious and
 polite men, had disseminated reports of this sort, in order to blunt the
 inclinations of the witnesses,—such as that I had been seduced by a great bribe from
 proceeding with a genuine prosecution; although it did not seem probable to any one,
 because the witnesses from Sicily were men
 who had known me as a quaestor in the province; and as the witnesses from Rome were men of the highest character, who knew
 every one of us thoroughly, just as they themselves are known; still I had some
 apprehension lest any one should have a doubt of my good faith and integrity, till
 we came to striking out the objectionable judges. I knew that in selecting the judges, some men, even
 within my own recollection, had not avoided the suspicion of a good understanding
 with the opposite party, though their industry and diligence was being proved
 actually in the prosecution of them.

I objected to objectionable judges in such a way that this is plain,—that since
 the republic has had that constitution which we now enjoy, no tribunal has ever
 existed of similar renown and dignity. And this credit that fellow says that he
 shares in common with me; since when he rejected Publius Galba as judge, he retained
 Marcus Lucretius; and when, upon this, his patron asked him why he had allowed his
 most intimate friends Sextus Paeduceus, Quintus Considius, and Quintus Junius, to be
 objected to, he answered, because he knew them to be too much attached to their own
 ideas and opinions in coming to a decision.

And so when the business of objecting to the judges was over, I hoped that you and
 I had now one common task before us. I thought that my good faith and diligence was
 approved of, not only by those to whom I was known, but even by strangers. And I was
 not mistaken: for in the comitia for my election, when that man was employing
 boundless bribery against me, the Roman people decided that his money, which had no
 influence with me when put in opposition to my own good faith, ought to have no
 influence with them to rob me of my honour. On the day when you first, O judges,
 were summoned to this place, and sat in judgment on this criminal, who was so
 hostile to your order, who was so desirous of a new constitution, of a new tribunal
 and new judges, as not to be moved at the sight of you and of your assembled body?

When on the trial your dignity procured me the fruit of my diligence, I gained
 thus much,—that in the same hour that I began to speak, I cut off from that
 audacious, wealthy, extravagant, and abandoned criminal, all hope of corrupting the
 judges; that on the very first day, when such a number of witnesses had been brought
 forward, the Roman people determined that If he were acquitted, the republic would
 no longer exist; that the second day took away from his friends, not only all hope
 of victory, but even all inclination to make any defence; that the third day
 prostrated the man so entirely, that, pretending to be sick, he took counsel, not
 what reply he could make, but how he could avoid making any; and after that, on the
 subsequent days, he was so oppressed and overwhelmed by these accusations, by these
 witnesses, both from the city and from the provinces, that when these days of the
 games intervened, no one thought that he had procured an adjournment, but they
 thought that he was condemned.

So that, as far as I am concerned, O judges, I gained the day; for I did not
 desire the spoils of Caius Verres, but the good opinion of the Roman people. It was
 my business to act as accuser only if I had a good cause. What cause was ever juster
 than the being appointed and selected by as illustrious a province as its defender?
 To consult the welfare of the republic;—what could be more honourable for the
 republic, than while the tribunals were in such general discredit, to bring before
 them a man by whose condemnation the whole order of the senate might be restored to
 credit and favour with the Roman people?—to prove and convince men that it was a
 guilty man who was brought to trial? Who is there of the Roman people who did not
 carry away this conviction from the previous pleading, that if all the wickednesses,
 thefts, and enormities of all who have ever been condemned before were brought
 together into one place, they could scarcely be likened or compared to but a small
 part of this man's crimes?

Judges, consider and deliberate what becomes your fame, your reputation, and the
 common safety? Your eminence prevents your being able to make any mistake without
 the greatest injury and danger to the republic. For the Roman people cannot hope
 that there are any other men in the senate who can judge uprightly, if you cannot.
 It is inevitable that, when it has learnt to despair of the whole order, it should
 look for another class of men and another system of judicial proceedings. If this
 seems to you at all a trifling matter, because you think the being judges a grave
 and inconvenient burden, you ought to be aware, in the first place, that it makes a
 difference whether you throw off that burden yourselves, of your own accord, or
 whether the power of sitting as judges is taken away from you because you have been
 unable to convince the Roman people of your good faith and scrupulous honesty. In
 the second place, consider this also, with what great danger we shall come before
 those judges whom the Roman people, by reason of its hatred to you, has willed shall
 judge concerning you.

But I will tell you, O judges, what I am sure of. Know, then, that there are some
 men who are possessed with such a hatred or your order, that they now make a
 practice of openly saying that they are willing for that man, whom they know to be a
 most infamous one, to be acquitted for this one reason,—that then the honour or the
 judgment-seat may be taken from the senate with ignominy and disgrace. It is not my
 fear for your good faith, O judges, which has urged me to lay these considerations
 before you at some length, but the new hopes which those men are entertaining; for
 when those hopes had brought Verres suddenly back from the gates of the city to this
 court, some men suspected that his intention had not been changed so suddenly
 without a cause.

Now, in order that Hortensius may not be able to employ any new sort of complaint,
 and to say that a defendant is oppressed if the accuser says nothing about him; that
 nothing is so dangerous to the fortunes of an innocent man as for his adversaries to
 keep silence; and in order that he may not praise my abilities in a way which I do
 not like, when he says that, if I had said much, I should have relieved him against
 whom I was speaking, and that I have undone him because I said nothing,—I will
 comply with his wishes, I shall employ one long unbroken speech: not because it is
 necessary, but that I may try whether he will be most vexed at my having been silent
 then or at my speaking now.

Here you, perhaps, will take care that I do not remit one hour of the time allowed
 me by law. If I do not employ the whole time which is allowed me by law, you will
 complain; you will invoke the faith of gods and men, calling them to witness how
 Caius Verres is circumvented because the prosecutor will not speak as long as he is
 allowed to speak by the law. What the law gives me for my own sake, may I not be
 allowed to forbear using? For the time for stating the accusation is given me for my
 own sake, that I may be able to unfold my charges and the whole cause in my speech.
 If I do not use it all, I do you no injury, but I give up something of my own right
 and advantage. You injure me, says he, for the cause ought to be thoroughly
 investigated. Certainly, for otherwise a defendant cannot be condemned, however
 guilty he may be. Were you, then, indignant that anything should be done by me to
 make it less easy for him to be condemned? For if the cause be understood, many men
 may be acquitted; if it be not understood, no one can be condemned.

I injure him, it seems, for I take away the right of adjournment. The most
 vexatious thing that the law has in it, the allowing a cause to be twice pleaded,
 has either been instituted for my sake rather than for yours, or, at all events, not
 more for your sake than for mine. For if to speak twice be an advantage, certainly
 it is an advantage which is common to both If there is a necessity that he who has
 spoken last should be refuted, then it is for the sake of the prosecutor that the he
 has been established that there should be a second discussion. But, as I imagine,
 Glaucia first proposed the law that the defendant might have an adjournment; before
 that time the decision might either be given at once, or the judges might take time
 to consider. Which law, then, do you think the mildest? I think that ancient one, by
 which a man might either be acquitted quickly, or condemned after deliberation. I
 restore you that law of Acilius, according to which many men who have only been
 accused once, whose cause has only been pleaded once, in whose case witnesses have
 only been heard once, have been condemned on charges by no means so clearly proved,
 nor so flagitious as those on which you are convicted. Think that you are pleading
 your cause, not according to that severe law, but according to that most merciful
 one. I will accuse you; you shall reply. Having produced my witnesses, I will lay
 the whole matter before the bench in such a way, that even if the law gave them a
 power of adjournment, yet they shall think it discreditable to themselves not to
 decide at the first hearing.

But if it be necessary for the cause to be thoroughly investigated, has this one
 been investigated but superficially? Are we keeping back anything, O Hortensius, a
 trick which we have often seen practiced in pleading? Who ever attends much to the
 advocate in this sort of action, in which anything is said to have been carried off
 and stolen by any one? Is not all the expectation of the judges fixed on the
 documents or on the witnesses? I said in the first pleading that I would make it
 plain that Caius Verres had carried off four hundred thousand sesterces contrary to the law. What ought I to have said? Should I have
 pleaded more plainly if I had related the whole affair thus?—There was a certain man
 of Halesa, named Dio, who, when a great inheritance had come to his son from a
 relation while Sacerdos was praetor, had at the time no trouble nor dispute about
 it. Verres, as soon as he arrived in the province, immediately wrote letters from
 Messana ; he summoned Dio before him, he
 procured false witnesses from among his own friends to say that that inheritance had
 been forfeited to Venus Erycina. He announced that he himself would take cognisance
 of that matter.

I can detail to you the whole affair in regular order, and at last tell you what
 the result was, namely, that Dio paid a million of sesterces , in order to prevail in a cause of most undeniable justice,
 besides that Verres had his herds of mares driven away, and all his plate and
 embroidered vestments carried off. But neither while I was so relating these things,
 nor while you were denying them, would our speeches be of any great importance. At
 what time then would the judge prick up his ears and begin to strain his attention?
 When Dio himself came forward, and the others who had at that time been engaged in
 Sicily on Dio's business, when, at the
 very time when Dio was pleading his cause, he was proved to have borrowed money, to
 have galled in all that was owing to him, to have sold farms; when the accounts of
 respectable men were produced, when they who had supplied Dio with money said that
 they had heard at the time that the money was taken on purpose to be given to
 Verres; when the friends, and connections, and patrons of Dio, most honourable men,
 said that they had heard the same thing.

Then, when this was going on, you would, I suppose, attend as you did attend. Then
 the cause would seem to be going on. Everything was managed by me in the former
 pleading so that among all the charges there was not one in which any one of you
 desired an uninterrupted statement of the case. I deny that anything was said by the
 witnesses which was either obscure to any one of you, or which required the
 eloquence of any orator to set it off. In truth, you must recollect that I conducted the case in this way;
 I set forth and detailed the whole charge at the time of the examination of
 witnesses, so that as soon as I had explained the whole affair, I then immediately
 examined the witnesses. And by that means, not only you, who have to judge, are in
 possession of our charges, but also the Roman people became acquainted with the
 whole accusation and the whole cause: although I am speaking of my own conduct as if
 I had done so of my own will rather than because I was induced to do so by any
 injustice of yours.

But you interposed another accuser, who, when I had only demanded a hundred and
 ten days to prosecute my inquiries in Sicily , demanded a hundred and eight for himself to go for a similar
 purpose into Achaia . When you had deprived
 me of the three months most suitable for conducting my cause, you thought that I
 would give you up the remainder of the year, so that, when he had employed the time
 allowed to me, you, O Hortensius, after the interruption of two festivals, might
 make your reply forty days afterwards; and then, that the time might be so spun out,
 that we might come from Marius Glabrio, the praetor, and from the greater part of
 these judges, to another praetor, and other judges.

If I had not seen this—if every one, both acquaintances and strangers, had not
 warned me that the object which they were driving at, which they were contriving,
 for which they were striving, was to cause the matter to be delayed to that time—I
 suppose, if I had chosen to spend all the time allowed me in stating the accusation,
 I should be under apprehensions that I should not have charges enough to bring, that
 subjects for a speech would be wanting to me, that my voice and strength would fail
 me, that I should not be able to accuse twice a man whom no one had dared to defend
 at the first pleading of the cause. I made my conduct appear reasonable both to the
 judges and also to the Roman people. There is no one who thinks that their injustice
 and impudence could have been opposed by any other means. Indeed, how great would
 have been my folly, if, though I might have avoided it, I had allowed matters to
 come on on the day which they who had undertaken to deliver him from justice
 provided for in their undertaking, when they gave their undertaking to deliver him
 in these words—“If the trial took place on or after the first of January?”

Now I must provide for the careful management of the time which is allowed me for
 making a speech, since I am determined to state the whole case most fully.
 Therefore I will pass
 by that first act of his life, most infamous and most wicked as it was. He shall
 hear nothing from me of the vices and offences of his childhood, nothing about his
 most dissolute youth: how that youth was spent, you either remember, or else you can
 recognise it in the son whom he has brought up to be so like himself: I will pass
 over everything which appears shameful to be mentioned; and I will consider not only
 what that fellow ought to have said of himself, but also what it becomes me to say.
 Do you, I entreat you, permit this, and grant to my modesty, that it may be allowed
 to pass over in silence some portion of his shamelessness.

At that time which passed before he came into office and became a public
 character, he may have free and untouched as far as I am concerned. Nothing shall be
 said of his drunken nocturnal revels; no mention shall be made of his pimps, and
 dicers, and panders; his losses at play, and the licentious transactions which the
 estate of his father and his own age prompted him to shall be passed over in
 silence. He may have lived in all infamy at that time with impunity, as far as I am
 concerned; the rest of his life has been such that I can well afford to put up with
 the loss of not mentioning those enormities.

You were quaestors to Cnaeus Papirius the consul fourteen years ago. All that you
 have done from that day to this day I bring before the court. Not one hour will be
 found free from theft, from wickedness, from cruelty, from atrocity. These years
 have been passed by you in the quaestorship, and in the lieutenancy in Asia , and in the city praetorship, and in the
 Sicilian praetorship. On which account a division of my whole action will also be
 made into four parts. As
 quaestor you received our province by lot, according to the decree of the senate. A
 consular province fell to your lot, so that you were with Cnaeus Carbo, the consul,
 and had that province. There was at that time dissension among the citizens: and in
 that I am not going to say anything as to what part you ought to have taken. This
 only do I say, that at such a time as that you ought to have made up your mind which
 side you would take and which party you would espouse. Carbo was very indignant that
 there had fallen to his lot as his quaestor a man of such notorious luxury and
 indolence. But he loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses. Not to dwell too long on
 this; money was voted, was paid; he went as quaestor to the
 province; he came into Gaul , where he had
 been for some time expected, to the army of the consul with the money. At the very
 first opportunity that offered, (take notice of the principle on which the man
 discharged the duties of his offices, and administered the affairs of the republic,)
 the quaestor, having embezzled the public money, deserted the consul, the army, and
 his allotted province.

I see what I have done; he rouses himself up; he hopes that, in the instance of
 this charge, some breeze may be wafted this way of good will and approbation for
 those men to him the name of Cnaeus Carbo, though dead, is unwelcome, and to whom he
 hopes that that desertion and betrayal of his consul will prove acceptable. As if he
 had done it from any desire to take the part of the nobility, or from any party
 zeal, and had not rather openly pillaged the consul, the army and the province, and
 then, because of this most impudent theft, had run away. For such an action as that
 is obscure, and such that one may suspect that Caius Verres, because he could not
 bear new men, passed over to the nobility, that is, to his own party, and that he
 did nothing from consideration of money.

Let us see how he gave in his accounts; now he himself will show why he left
 Cnaeus Carbo; now he himself will show what he is. First of all take notice of their brevity—“I received,”
 says he, “two million two hundred and thirty-five thousand four hundred and
 seventeen sesterces ; I spent, for pay to the
 soldiers, for corn, for the lieutenants, for the pro-quaestor, for the praetorian
 cohort, sixteen hundred and thirty-five thousand four hundred and seventeen sesterces ; I left at Ariminum six hundred thousand sesterces .” Is this giving in accounts? Did either I, or you, O
 Hortensius, or any man ever give in his accounts in this manner? What does this
 mean? what impudence it is! what audacity! What precedent is there of any such in
 all the number of accounts that have ever been rendered by public officers? And yet
 these six hundred thousand sesterces , as to which
 he could not even devise a false account of whom he had paid them to, and which he
 said he had left at Ariminum ,—these
 six hundred thousand sesterces which he had in
 hand, Carbo never touched, Sulla never saved them, nor were these ever brought into
 the treasury. He selected Ariminum as
 the town, because at the time when he was giving in his accounts, it had been taken
 and plundered. He did not suspect, what he shall now find out, that plenty of the
 Ariminians were left to us after that disaster as witnesses to that point. Read now—

“Accounts rendered to Publius Lentulus, and Lucius Triarius, quaestors of the
 city.” Read on—“According to the decree of the senate.” In order to be allowed to
 give in accounts in such a manner as this, he became one of Sulla's party in an
 instant, and not for the sake of contributing to the restoration of honour and
 dignity to the nobility. Even if you had deserted empty-handed, still your desertion
 would be decided to be wicked, your betrayal of your consul, infamous. Oh, Cnaeus
 Carbo was a bad citizen, a scandalous consul, a seditious man. He may have been so
 to others: when did he begin to be so to you? After he entrusted to you the money,
 the supplying of corn, all his accounts, and his army; for if he had displeased you
 before that, you would have done the same as Marcus Piso did the year after. When he
 had fallen by lot to Lucius Scipio, as consul, he never touched the money, he never
 joined the army at all. The opinions he embraced concerning the republic he embraced
 so as to do no violence to his own good faith, to the customs of our ancestors, nor
 to the obligations imposed on him by the lot which he had drawn.

In truth, if we wish to disturb all these things, and to throw them into
 confusion, we shall render life full of danger, intrigue, and enmity; if such
 allurements are to have no scruples to protect them; if the connection between men
 in prosperous and doubtful fortunes is to cause no friendship; if the customs and
 principles of our ancestors are to have no authority. He is the common enemy of all
 men who has once been the enemy of his own connections. No wise man ever thought
 that a traitor was to be trusted; Sulla himself, to whom the arrival of the fellow
 ought to have been most acceptable, removed him from himself and from his army: he
 ordered him to remain at Beneventum ,
 among those men whom he believed to be exceedingly friendly to his party, where he
 could do no harm to his cause and could have no influence on the termination of the
 war. Afterwards, indeed, he rewarded him liberally; he allowed him to seize some
 estates of men who had been proscribed lying in the territory of Beneventum ; he loaded him with honour as a
 traitor; he put no confidence in him as a friend.

Now, although there are men who hate Cnaeus Carbo, though dead, yet they ought to
 think, not what they were glad to have happen, but what they themselves would have
 to fear in a similar case. This is a misfortune common to many a cause for alarm,
 and a danger common to many. There are no intrigues more difficult to guard against
 than those which are concealed under a pretence of duty, or under the name of some
 intimate connection. For you can easily avoid one who is openly an adversary, by
 guarding against him; but this secret, internal, and domestic evil not only exists,
 but even overwhelms you before you can foresee it or examine into it. Is it not so?

When you were sent as quaestor to the army, not only as guardian of the money, but
 also of the consul; when you were the sharer in all his business and of all his
 counsels, when you were considered by him as one of his own children, according to
 the tenor of the principles of our ancestors; could you on a sudden leave him?
 desert him? pass over to the enemy? O wickedness! O monster to be banished to the
 very end of the world! For that nature which has committed such an atrocity as this
 cannot be contented with this one crime alone. It must be always contriving
 something of this sort; it must be occupied in similar audacity and perfidy.

Therefore, that same fellow whom Cnaeus Dolabella afterwards, when Caius Malleolus
 had been slain, had for his quaestor, (I know not whether this connection was not
 even a closer one than the connection with Carbo, and whether the consideration of
 his having been voluntarily chosen is not stronger than that of his having been
 chosen by lot,) behaved to Cnaeus Dolabella in the same manner as he had behaved in
 to Cnaeus Carbo. For, the charges which properly touched himself, he transferred to
 his shoulders; and gave information of everything connected with his cause to his
 enemies and accusers. He himself gave most hostile and most infamous evidence
 against the man to whom he had been lieutenant and pro-quaestor. Dolabella,
 unfortunate as he was, through his abominable betrayal, through his infamous and
 false testimony, was injured far more than by either, by the odium created by that
 fellow's own thefts and atrocities.

What can you do with such a man? or what hope can you allow so perfidious, so
 ill-omened an animal to entertain? One who despised and trampled on the lot which
 bound him to Cnaeus Carbo, the choice which connected him with Cnaeus Dolabella, and
 not only deserted them both, but also betrayed and attacked them. Do not, I beg of
 you, O judges, judge of his crimes by the brevity of my speech rather than by the
 magnitude of the actions themselves. For I am forced to make haste in order to have
 time to set before you all the things which I have resolved to relate to you.
 Wherefore, now that his quaestorship has been put before you, saw that the
 dishonesty and wickedness of his first conduct in his first office has been
 thoroughly seen, listen, I pray you, to the remainder.

And in this I will pass over that period of proscription and rapine which took
 place under Sulla; nor will I allow him to derive any argument for his own defence
 from that time of common calamity to all men. I will accuse him of nothing but his
 own peculiar and well-proved crimes. Therefore, omitting all mention of the time of
 Sulla from the accusation, consider that splendid lieutenancy of his. After
 Cilicia was appointed to Cnaeus Dolabella
 as his province, O ye immortal gods! with what covetousness, with what incessant
 applications, did he force from him that lieutenancy for himself, which was indeed
 the beginning of the greatest calamity to Dolabella. For as he proceeded on his
 journey to the province, wherever he went his conduct was such, that it was not some
 lieutenant of the Roman people, but rather some calamity that seemed to be going
 through the country.

In Achaia , (I will omit all minor things,
 to some of which perhaps some one else may some time or other have done something
 like; I will mention nothing except what is unprecedented, nothing except what would
 appear incredible, if it were alleged against any other criminal,) he demanded money
 from a Sicyonian magistrate. Do not let this be considered a crime in Verres; others
 have done the tame. When he could not give it, he punished him; a scandalous, but
 still not an unheard-of act. Listen to the sort of punishment; you will ask, of what
 race of men you are to think him a specimen. He ordered a fire to be made of green
 and damp wood in a narrow place. There he left a free man, a noble in his own
 country, an ally and friend of the Roman people, tortured with smoke, half dead.

After that, what statues, what paintings he carried off from Achaia , I will not mention at present. There is
 another part of my speech which I have reserved for speaking of this covetousness of
 the man. You have heard that at Athens a
 great sum of money was taken out of the temple of Minerva. This was mentioned in the
 trial of Cnaeus Dolabella. Mentioned? the amount too was stated. Of this design you
 will find that Caius Verres was not only a partaker, but was even the chief
 instigator.

He came to Delos . There from that most
 holy temple of Apollo he privately took away by night the most beautiful and ancient
 statues, and took care that they were all placed on board his own transport. The
 next day, when the inhabitants of Delos 
 saw their temple plundered, they were very indignant. For the holiness and antiquity
 of that temple is so great in their eyes, that they believe that Apollo himself was
 born in that place. However, they did not dare to say one word about it, lest haply
 Dolabella himself might be concerned in the business. Then on a sudden a very great tempest
 arose, O judges; so that Dolabella could not only not depart, when he wished, but
 could scarcely stand in the city, such vast waves were dashed on shore. Here that
 ship of that pirate loaded with the consecrated statues, being cast up and driven
 ashore by the waves, is broken to pieces. Those statues of Apollo were found on the
 shore; by command of Dolabella they are restored; the tempest is lulled; Dolabella
 departs from Delos .

I do not doubt, though there was no feeling of humanity ever in you, no regard for
 holiness, still that now in your fear and danger thoughts of your wicked actions
 occurred to you. Can there be any comfortable hope of safety cherished by you, when
 you recollect how impious, how wicked, how blasphemous has been your conduct towards
 the immortal gods? Did you dare to plunder the Delian Apollo? Did you dare to lay
 impious and sacrilegious hands on that temple, so ancient, so venerated, so holy? If
 you were not in your childhood taught and framed to learn and know what has been
 committed to writing, still would you not afterwards, when you came into the very
 places themselves, learn and believe what is handed down both by tradition and by
 documents:

That Latona , after a long wandering and
 persecution, pregnant, and now near bringing forth, when her time was come, fled to
 Delos , and there brought forth Apollo
 and Diana; from which belief of men that island is considered sacred to those gods;
 and such is and always has been the influence of that religious belief, that not
 even the Persians, when they waged war on all Greece , on gods and men, and when they had put in with a fleet of a
 thousand ships at Delos , attempted to
 violate, or even to touch anything. Did you, O most wicked, O most insane of men,
 attempt to plunder this temple? Was any covetousness of such power as to extinguish
 such solemn religious belief? And if you did not think of this at that time, do you
 not recollect even now that there is no evil so great as not to have been long since
 due to you for your wicked actions?

But after he arrived in Asia ,—why should
 I enumerate the dinners, the suppers, the horses, and the presents which marked that
 progress? I am not going to say anything against Verres for everyday crimes. I say
 that he carried off by force some most beautiful statues from Chios ; also from Erythrae; also from Halicarnassus . From Tenedos (I pass over the money which he seized) he carried off
 Tenes himself, who among the Tenedians is
 considered a most holy god, who is said to have founded that city, after whose name
 it is called Tenedos . This very
 Tenes , I say, most admirably wrought,
 which you have seen before now in the assembly,
 he carried off amid the great lamentations of the city.

But that storming of that most ancient and most noble temple of the Samian Juno,
 how grievous was it to the Samians! how bitter to all Asia ! how notorious to all men! how notorious to every one of you!
 And when ambassadors had come from Samos 
 into Asia to Caius Nero, to complain of
 this attack on that temple, they received for answer, that complaints of that sort,
 which concerned a lieutenant of the Roman people, ought not to be brought before the
 praetor, but must be carried to Rome . What
 pictures did he carry off from thence; what statues! which I saw lately in his
 house, when I went thither for the sake of sealing it up.

And where are those statues now, O Verres? I mean those which I lately saw in your
 house against every pillar, and also in every space between two pillars, and
 actually arranged in the grove in the open air? Why were those things left at your
 house, as long as you thought that another praetor, with the other judges whom you
 expected to have substituted in the room of these, was to sit in judgment upon your?
 But when you saw that we preferred suiting the convenience of our own witnesses
 rather than your convenience as to time, you left not one statue in your house
 except two which were in the middle of it, and which were themselves stolen from
 Samos . Did you not think that I would
 summon your most intimate friends to give evidence of this matter, who had often
 been at your house, and ask of them whether they knew that statues were there which
 were not?

What did you think that these men would think of you then, when they saw that you
 were no longer contending against your accuser, but against the quaestor and the
 brokers? On which matter you heard Charidemus of Chios give his evidence at the former pleadings,
 that he, when he was captain of a trireme, and was attending Verres on his departure
 from Asia , was with him at Samos , by command of Dolabella and that he then knew
 that the temple of Juno had been plundered, and the town of Samos ; that afterwards he had been put on his trial
 before the Chians, his fellow citizens, on the accusation of the Samians; and that
 he had been acquitted because he had made it plain that the allegations of the
 Samians concerned Verres, and not him.

You know that Aspendus is an ancient and
 noble town in Pamphylia , full of very fine
 statues. I do not say that one statue or another was taken away from thence: this I
 say, that you, O Verres, left not one statue at Aspendus ; that everything from the temples and from all public places
 was openly seized and carried away on wagons, the citizens all looking on. And he
 even carried off that harp-player of Aspendus , of whom you have often heard the saying, which is a proverb
 among the Greeks, who used to say that he could sing everything within himself, and
 put him in the inmost part of his own house, so as to appear to have surpassed the
 statue itself in trickery.

At Perga we are aware that there is a very ancient and very holy temple of Diana.
 That too, I say, was stripped and plundered by you; and all the gold which there was
 on Diana herself was taken off and carried away. What, in the name of mischief, can
 such audacity and inanity mean? In the very cities of our friends and allies, which
 you visited under the pretext of your office as lieutenant, if you had stormed them
 by force with an army, and had exercised military rule there; still, I think, the
 statues and ornaments which you took away, you would have carried, not to your own
 house, nor to the suburban villas of your friends, but to Rome for the public use.

Why should I speak of Marcus Marcellus, who took Syracuse , that most beautiful city? why of Lucius Scipio, who waged
 war in Asia , and conquered Antiochus, a
 most powerful monarch? why of Flaminius, who subdued Philip the king, and Macedonia ? why of Lucius Paullus, who with his might
 and valour conquered king Perses? why of Lucius Mummius, who overthrew that most
 beautiful and elegant city Corinth ,
 full of all sorts of riches, and brought many cities of Achaia and Boeotia under the
 empire and dominion of the Roman people?—their houses, though they were rich in
 virtue and honour, were empty of statues and paintings. But we see the whole city,
 the temples of the gods, and all parts of Italy , adorned with their gifts, and with memorials of them.

I am afraid all this may seem to some people too ancient, and long ago obsolete.
 For at that time all men were so uniformly disposed in the same manner, that this
 credit of eminent virtue and incorruptibility appears to belong, not only to those
 men, but also to those times. Publius Servilius, a most illustrious man, who has
 performed the noblest exploits, is present. He will deliver his opinion on your
 conduct. He, by his power, had forces; his wisdom and his valour took Olympus , an ancient city, and one strengthened and
 embellished in every possible manner. I am bringing forward recent example of a most
 distinguished man. For Servilius, as a general of the Roman people, took Olympus after you, as lieutenant of the quaestor in
 the same district, had taken care to harass and plunder all the cities of our
 friends and allies even when they were at peace.

The things which you carried off from the holiest temples with wickedness, and
 like a robber, we cannot see, except in your own houses, or in those of your
 friends. The statues and decorations which Publius Servilius brought away from the
 cities of our enemies, taken by his courage and valour, according to the laws of war
 and his own rights as commander-in-chief, he brought home for the Roman people; he
 carried them in his triumph, and took care that a description of them should be
 engraved on public tablets and hid up in the treasury. You may learn from public
 documents the industry of that most honourable man. Read—“The accounts delivered by
 Publius Servilius.” You see not only the number of the statues, but the size, the
 figure, and the condition of each one among them accurately described in writing.
 Certainly, the delight arising from virtue and from victory is much greater than
 that pleasure which is derived from licentiousness and covetousness. I say that
 Servilius took much more care to have the booty of the Roman people noted and
 described, than you took to have your plunder catalogued.

You will say that your statues and paintings were also an ornament to the city and
 forum of the Roman people. I recollect: I, together with the Roman people, saw the
 forum and place for holding the assemblies adorned with embellishments, in
 appearance indeed magnificent, but to one's senses and thoughts bitter and
 melancholy. I saw everything glittering with your thefts, with the plunder of the
 provinces, with the spoils of our allies and friends. At which time, O judges, that
 fellow conceived the hope of committing his other crimes. For he saw that these men,
 who wished to be called the masters of the courts of law, were slaves to these
 desires.

But the allies and foreign nations then first abandoned the hope of saving any of
 their property and fortunes, because, as it happened, there were at that time very
 many ambassadors from Asia and Achaia at Rome , who worshipped in the forum the images of the gods which had
 been taken from their temples. And so also, when they recognised the other statues
 and ornaments, they wept, as they beheld the different pieces of their property in
 different place. And from all those men we then used to hear discourses of this
 sort:—“That it was impossible for any one to doubt of the ruin of our allies and
 friends, when men saw in the forum of the Roman people, in which formerly those men
 used to be accused and condemned who had done any injury to the allies, those things
 now openly placed which had been wickedly seized and taken away from the allies.”

Here I do not expect that he will deny that he has many statues, and countless
 paintings. But, as I fancy, he is accustomed at times to say that he purchased these
 things which he seized and stole; since indeed he was sent at the public expense,
 and with the title of ambassador, into Achaia , Asia , and Pamphylia as a purchaser of statues and paintings.
 I have all the accounts
 both of that fellow and of his father, of money received, which I have most
 carefully read and arranged; those of your father, as long as he lived, you own, as
 far as you say that you have made them up. For in that man, O judges, you will find
 this new thing. We hear that some men have never kept accounts; which is a mistaken
 opinion of men with respect to Antonius; for he kept them most carefully. But there
 may be men of that sort, but they are by no means to be approved of. We hear that
 some men have not kept them from the beginning, but after some time have made them
 up; there is a way of accounting for this too. But this is unprecedented and absurd
 which this man gave us for an answer, when we demanded his account of him: “That he
 kept them up to the consulship of Marcus Terentius and Caius Cassius; but that,
 after that, he gave up keeping them.”

In another place we will consider what sort of a reply this is; at present I am
 not concerned with it; for of the times about which I am at present occupied I have
 the accounts, both yours and those of your father. You cannot deny that you carried
 off very many most beautiful statues, very many admirable paintings. I wish you
 would deny it. Show in your accounts or in those of your father that any one of them
 was purchased, and you have gained your cause. There is not even any possibility of
 your having bought those two most beautiful statues which are now standing in your
 court, and which stood for many years by the folding doors of the Samian Juno; these
 two, I say, which are now the only statues left in your house, which are waiting for
 the broker, left alone and deserted by the other statues.

But, I suppose in these matters alone had he this irrepressible and unbridled
 covetousness; his other desires were restrained by some reason and moderation. To
 how many noble virgins, to how many matrons do you think he offered violence in that
 foul and obscene lieutenancy? In what town did he set his foot that he did not leave
 more traces of his rapes and atrocities than he did of his arrival? But I will pass
 over everything which can be denied; even those things which are most certain and
 most evident I will omit; I will select one of his abominable deeds, in order that I
 may the more easily at last arrive at Sicily , which has imposed the burden of this business on me.

There is a town on the Hellespont , O
 judges, called Lampsacus , among the first
 in the province of Asia for renown and for
 nobleness. And the citizens themselves of Lampsacus are most especially kind to all Roman citizens, and also
 are an especially quiet and orderly race; almost beyond all the rest of the Greeks
 inclined to the most perfect ease, rather than to any disorder or tumult. It
 happened, when he had prevailed on Cnaeus Dolabella to send him to king Nicomedes
 and to king Sadala, and when he had begged this expedition, more with a view to his
 own gain than to any advantage for the republic, that in that journey he came to
 Lampsacus , to the great misfortune and
 almost ruin of the city. He is conducted to the house of a man named Janitor as his
 host; and his companions also, are billeted on other entertainers. As was the
 fellow's custom, and as his lusts always instigating him to commit some wickedness
 prompted him, he immediately gives a commission to his companions, the most
 worthless and infamous of men, to inquire and find out whether there is any virgin
 woman worthy of his staying longer at Lampsacus for her sake.

He had a companion of the name of Rubrius, a man made for such vices as his, who
 used to find out all these things for him wherever he went, with wonderful address.
 He brings him the following news,—that there was a man of the name of Philodamus, in
 birth, in rank, in wealth, and in reputation by far the first man among the citizens
 of Lampsacus ; that his daughter, who was
 living with her father because she had not yet got a husband, was a woman of
 extraordinary beauty, but was also considered exceedingly modest and virtuous. The
 fellow, when he heard this, was so inflamed with desire for that which he had not
 only not seen himself, but which even he from whom he heard of it had not seen
 himself, that he said he should like to go to Philodamus immediately. Janitor, his
 host, who suspected nothing, being afraid that he must have given him some offence
 himself, endeavoured with all his might to detain him. Verres, as he could not find
 any pretext for leaving his host's house began to pave his way for his meditated
 violence by other steps. He says that Rubrius, his most loved friend, his assistant
 in all such matters, and the partner of his counsels, is lodged with but little
 comfort. He orders him to be conducted to the house of Philodamus.

But when this is reported to Philodamus, although he was ignorant what great
 misfortune was at that moment being contrived for him and for his children, still he
 comes to him,—represents to him that that is not his office,—that when it was his
 turn to receive guests, he was accustomed to receive the praetors and consuls
 themselves, and not the attendants of lieutenants. Verres, as he was hurried on by
 that one desire alone, disregarded all his demands and allegations, and ordered
 Rubrius to be introduced by force into the house of a man who had a right to refuse
 him admittance. On this,
 Philodamus, when he could not preserve his rights, studied at least to preserve his
 courtesy and affability. He who had always been considered most hospitable and most
 friendly towards our people, did not like to appear to have received even this
 fellow Rubrius into his house unwillingly; he prepares a banquet magnificently and
 luxuriously, being, as he was, among the richest of all his fellow citizens; he begs
 Rubrius to invite whoever were agreeable to himself; to leave, if he pleased, just
 room for himself alone. He even sends his own son, a most excellent youth, out to
 one of his relations to supper.

Rubrius invites Verres's companions; Verres informs them all what there was to be
 done. They come early. They sit down to supper. Conversation takes place among them,
 and an invitation is given to drink in the Greek fashion. The host encourages them;
 they demand wine in larger goblets; the banquet proceeds with the conversation and
 joy of every one. When the business appeared to Rubrius to have got warm enough, “I
 would know of you, O Philodamus,” says he, “why you do not bid your daughter to be
 invited in hither to us?” The man, who was both a most dignified man, and of mature
 age, and a parent, was amazed at the speech of the rascal. Rubrius began to urge it.
 Then he, in order to give some answer, said that it was not the custom of the Greeks
 for women to sit down at the banquets of men. On this some one else from some other
 part of the room cried out, “But this is not to be borne; let the women be
 summoned.” And immediately Rubrius orders his slaves to shut the door, and to stand
 at the doors themselves.

But when Philodamus perceived that what was intended and being prepared was, that
 violence should be offered to his daughter, he calls his servants to him, he bids
 them disregard him and defend his daughter, and orders some one to run out and bear
 the news to his son of this overpowering domestic misfortune. Meantime an uproar
 arises throughout the whole house; a fight takes place between the slaves of Rubrius
 and his host. That noble and most honourable man is buffeted about in his own house;
 every one fights for his own safety. At last Philodamus has a quantity of boiling
 water thrown over him by Rubrius himself. When the news of this is brought to the
 son, half dead with alarm he instantly hastens home to bring aid to save the life of
 his father and the modesty of his sister. All the citizens of Lampsacus , with the same spirit, the moment they
 heard of it, because both the worth of Philodamus and the enormity of the injury
 excited them, assembled by night at his house. At this time Cornelius, the lictor of
 Verres, who had been placed with his slaves by Rubrius, as if on guard, for the
 purpose of carrying off the woman, is slain; some of the slaves are wounded; Rubrius
 himself is wounded in the crowd. Verres, when he saw such an uproar excited by his
 own cupidity, began to wish to escape some way or other if he could.

The next morning men come early to the public assembly; they ask what is best to
 be done; every one delivered his own opinions to the people according as each
 individual had the most weight. No one was found whose opinion and speech was not to
 this purpose:—“That it need not be feared, if the Lampsacenes had avenged that man's
 atrocious wickedness by force and by the sword, that the senate and Roman people
 would have thought they ought to chastise their city. And if the lieutenants of the
 Roman people were to establish this law with respect to the allies, and to foreign
 nations,—that they were not to be allowed to preserve the chastity of their children
 unpolluted by their lusts, it was better to endure anything rather than to live in a
 state of such violence and bitterness.”

As all were of this opinion, and as every one spoke in this tenor, as his own
 feelings and indignation prompted each individual, all immediately proceeded towards
 the house where Verres was staying. They began to beat the door with stones, to
 attack it with weapons, to surround it with wood and faggots, and to apply fire to
 it. Then the Roman citizens who were dwelling as traders at Lampsacus run together to the spot; they entreat the
 citizens of Lampsacus to allow the name of
 the lieutenancy to have more weight with them than the insult of the lieutenant;
 they say that they were well aware that he was an infamous and wicked man, but as he
 had not accomplished what he had attempted, and as he was not going to be at
 Lampsacus any longer, their error in
 sparing a wicked man would be less than that of not sparing a lieutenant.

And so that fellow, far more wicked and infamous than even the notorious Hadrian,
 was a good deal
 more fortunate. He, because Roman citizens could not tolerate his avarice, was burnt
 alive at Utica in his own house; and that
 was thought to have happened to him so deservedly, that all men rejoiced, and no
 punishment was inflicted for the deed. This man, scorched indeed though he was by
 the fire made by our allies, yet escaped from those flames and that danger; and has
 not even yet been able to imagine what he had done, or what had happened to bring
 him into such great danger. For he cannot say:—“When I was trying to put down a
 sedition, when I was ordering corn, when I was collecting money for the soldiers,
 when in short I was doing something or other for the sake of the republic, because I
 gave some strict order, because I punished some one, because I threatened some one,
 all this happened.” Even if he were to say so, still he ought not to be pardoned, if
 he seemed to have been brought into such great danger through issuing too savage
 commands to our allies.

Now when he neither dares himself to allege any such cause for the tumult as being
 true, nor even to invent such a falsehood, but when a most temperate man of his own
 order, who at that time was in attendance on Caius Nero, Publius Tettius, says that
 he too heard this same account at Lampsacus , (a man most accomplished in everything, Caius Varro, who was
 at that time in Asia as military tribune,
 says that be heard this very same story from Philodamus,) can you doubt that fortune
 was willing, not so much to save him from that danger, as to reserve him for your
 judgment! Unless, indeed, he will say, as indeed Hortensius did say, interrupting
 Tettius while he was giving his evidence in the former pleading (at which time
 indeed he gave plenty of proof that, if there were anything which he could say, he
 could not keep silence; so that we may all feel sure that, while he was silent in
 the other matters that were alleged, he was so because he had nothing to say); he at
 that time said this, that Philodamus and his son had been condemned by Caius Nero.

About which, not to make a long speech, I will merely say that Nero and his bench
 of judges came to that decision on the ground that it was plain that Cornelius, his
 lictor, had been slain, and that they thought it was not right that any one, even
 while avenging his own injuries, should have the power to kill a man. And as to this
 I see that you were not by Nero's sentence acquitted of atrocity, but that they were
 convicted of murder. And yet what sort of a conviction was that? Listen, I entreat
 you, O judges, and do sometimes pity our allies, and show that they ought to have,
 and that they have, some protection in your integrity. Because the man appeared to all
 Asia to have been lawfully slain, being
 in name indeed his lictor, but in reality the minister of his most profligate
 desires, Verres feared that Philodamus would be acquitted by the sentence of Nero.
 He begs and entreats Dolabella to leave his own province, to go to Nero; he shows
 that he himself cannot be safe if Philodamus be allowed to live and at any time to
 come to Rome .

Dolabella was moved; he did what many blamed, in leaving his army, his province,
 and the war, and in going into Asia , into
 the province of another magistrate, for the sake of a most worthless man. After he
 came to Nero, he urged him to take cognisance of the cause of Philodamus. He came
 himself to sit on the bench, and to be the first to deliver his opinion. He had
 brought with him also his prefects, and his military tribunes, all of whom Nero
 invited to take their places on the bench On that bench also was that most just
 judge Verres himself. There were some Romans also, creditors of some of the Greeks,
 to whom the favour of any lieutenant, be he ever so infamous, is of the greatest
 influence in enabling them to get in their money.

The unhappy prisoner could find no one to defend him; for what citizen was there
 who was not under the influence of Dolabella? what Greek who was not afraid of his
 power and authority? And then is assigned as the accuser a Roman citizen, one of the
 creditors of the Lampsacenes; and if he would only say what that fellow ordered him
 to say, he was to be enabled to compel payment of his money from the people, by the
 aid of that same Verres's lictors. When all these thing; were conducted with such
 zeal, and with such resources; when many were accusing that unhappy man, and no one
 was defending him; and when Dolabella, with his prefects, was taking an eager part
 on the bench; when Verres kept saying that his fortunes were at stake—when he also
 gave his evidence—when he also was sitting on the bench—when he also had provided
 the accuser; when all this was done, and when it was clear that the man had been
 slain, still, so great was the weight which the consideration of bat fellow's injury
 had, so great was his iniquity thought, that the case of Philodamus was adjourned
 for further inquiry.

Why need I now speak of the energy of Cnaeus Dolabella at the second hearing of
 the cause,—of his tears of his agitation of body and minds? Why need I describe the
 mind of Caius Nero,—a most virtuous and innocent man, but still on some occasions
 too timid and low spirited?—who in that emergency had no idea what to do, unless,
 perchance (as every one wished him to do), to settle the matter without the
 intervention of Verres and Dolabella. Whatever had been done without their
 intervention all men would approve; but, as it was, the sentence which was given was
 thought not to have been pronounced judicially by Nero, but to have been extorted by
 Dolabella. For Philodamus and his son are convicted by a few votes: Dolabella is
 present; urges and presses Nero to have them executed as speedily as possible, in
 order that as few as may be may bear of that man's nefarious wickedness.

There is exhibited in the market-place of Laodicea a spectacle bitter, and miserable, and grievous to the whole
 province of Asia —an aged parent led forth
 to punishment, and on the other side a son; the one because he had defended the
 chastity of his children, the other because he had defended the life of his father
 and the fair fame of his sister. Each was weeping,—the father, not for his own
 execution, but for that of his son; the son for that of his father. How many tears
 do you think that Nero himself sheds? How great do you think was the weeping of all
 Asia? How great the groans and lamentations of the citizens of Lampsacus , that innocent men, nobles, allies and
 friends of the Roman people, should be put to death by public execution, on account
 of the unprecedented wickedness and impious desires of one most profligate man?

After this, O Dolabella, no one can pity either you or your children, whom you
 have left miserable, in beggary and solitude. Was Verres so dear to you, that you
 should wish the disappointment of his lust to be expiated by the blood of innocent
 men? Did you leave your army and the enemy, in order by your own power and cruelty
 to diminish the dangers of that most wicked man? For, had you expected him to be an
 everlasting friend to you, because you had appointed him to act as your quaestor?
 Did you not know, that Cnaeus Carbo, the consul whose real quaestor he had been, had
 not only been deserted by him, but had also been deprived of his resources and his
 money, and nefariously attacked and betrayed by him? Therefore, you too experienced
 his perfidy when he joined your enemies,—when he, himself a most guilty man, gave
 most damaging evidence against you—when he refused to give in his accounts to the
 treasury unless you were condemned.

Are your lusts, O Verres, to be so atrocious, that the provinces of the Roman
 people, that foreign nations, cannot limit and cannot endure them? Unless whatever
 you see, whatever you hear, whatever you desire, whatever you think of, is in a
 moment to be subservient to your nod, is at once to obey your lust and desire, are
 men to be sent into people's houses? are the houses to be stormed? Are cities—not
 only the cities of enemies now reduced to peace—but are the cities of our allies and
 friends to be forced to have recourse to violence and to arms, in order to be able
 to repel from themselves and from their children the wickedness and lust of a
 lieutenant of the Roman people? For I ask of you, were you besieged at Lampsacus ? Did that multitude begin to burn the
 house in which you were staying? Did the citizens of Lampsacus wish to burn a lieutenant of the Roman people alive? You
 cannot deny it; for I have your own evidence which you gave before Nero,—I have the
 letters which you sent to him. Recite the passage from his evidence.

[The evidence of Caius Verres against Artemidorus is read.] Recite the passages
 out of Verres's letters to Nero. [Passages from the letters of Verres to Nero are
 read.] “Not long afterwards, they came into the house.” Was the city of Lampsacus endeavouring to make war on the Roman
 people? Did it wish to revolt from our dominion—to cast off the name of allies of
 Rome ? For I see, and, from those things
 which I have read and heard, I am sure, that, if in any city a lieutenant of the
 Roman people has been, not only besieged, not only attacked with fire and sword, by
 violence, and by armed forces, but even to some extent actually injured, unless
 satisfaction be publicly made for the insult, war is invariably declared and waged
 against that city.

What, then, was the cause why the whole city of the Lampsacenes ran, as you write
 yourself, from the assembly to your house? For neither in the letters which you sent
 to Nero, nor in your evidence, do you mention any reason for so important a
 disturbance. You say that you were besieged, that fire was applied to your house,
 that faggots were put round it; you say that your lictor was slain; you say that you
 did not dare appear in the public streets; but the cause of all this alarm you
 conceal. For if Rubrius had done any injury to any one on his own account, and not
 at your instigation and for the gratification of your desires, they would rather
 have come to you to complain of the injury done by your companion, than have come to
 besiege you. As, therefore, he himself has concealed what the cause of that
 disturbance was, and as the witnesses produced by us have related it, do not both
 their evidence and his own continued silence prove the reason to be that which we
 have alleged?

Will you then spare this man, O judges? whose offences are so great that they whom
 he injured could neither wait for the legitimate time to take their revenge, nor
 restrain to a future time the violence of their indignation. You were besieged? By
 whom? By the citizens of Lampsacus —barbarous men, I suppose, or, at all events, men who despised
 the name of the Roman people. Say rather, men, by nature, by custom, and by
 education most gentle; moreover, by condition, allies of the Roman people, by
 fortune our subjects, by inclination our suppliants—so that it is evident to all
 men, that unless the bitterness of the injury and the enormity of the wickedness had
 been such that the Lampsacenes thought it better to die than to endure it, they
 never would have advanced to such a pitch as to be more influenced by hatred of your
 lust—than by fear of your office as lieutenant.

Do not, in the name of the immortal gods, I entreat you—do not compel the allies
 and foreign nations to have recourse to such a refuge as that; and they must of
 necessity have recourse to it, unless you chastise such crimes. Nothing would ever
 have softened the citizens of Lampsacus towards him, except their believing that he
 would be punished at Rome . Although they
 had sustained such an injury that they could not sufficiently avenge it by any law
 in the world, yet they would have preferred to submit their griefs to our laws and
 tribunals, rather than to give way to their own feelings of indignation. You, when
 you have been besieged by so illustrious a city on account of your own wickedness
 and crime—when you have compelled men, miserable and maddened by calamity, as if in
 despair of our laws and tribunals, to fly to violence, to combat, and to arms—when
 you have shown yourself in the towns and cities of our friends, not as a lieutenant
 of the Roman people, but as a lustful and inhuman tyrant—when among foreign nations
 you have injured the reputation of our dominion and our name by your infamy and your
 crimes—when you have with difficulty saved yourself from the sword of the friends of
 the Roman people, and escaped from the fire of its allies, do you think you will
 find an asylum here? You are mistaken—they allowed you to escape alive that you
 might fall into our power here, not that you might find rest here.

And you say that a judicial decision was come to that you were injuriously
 besieged for no reason at Lampsacus ,
 because Philodamus and his son were condemned. What if I show, if I make it evident,
 by the evidence of a worthless man indeed, but still a competent witness in this
 matter,—by the evidence of you yourself,—that you yourself transferred the reason of
 this siege laid to you, and the blame of it, to others? and that those whom you had
 accused were not punished? Then the decision of Nero will do you but little good.
 Recite the letters which he sent to Nero. [The letter of Caius Verres to Nero is
 read.] “Themistagoras and Thessalus.” ... You write that Themistagoras and Thessalus
 stirred up the people. What people? They who besieged you; who endeavoured to burn
 you alive. Where do you prosecute them? Where do you accuse them? Where do you
 defend the name and rights of a lieutenant? Will you say that that was settled by
 the trial of Philodamus? Let me have the evidence of Verres himself.

Let us see what that fellow said on his oath. Recite it. “Being asked by the
 accuser, he answered that he was not prosecuting for that in this trial, that he
 intended to prosecute for that another time.” How, then, does Nero's decision profit
 you?—how does the conviction of Philodamus? Though you, a lieutenant, had been
 besieged, and when, as you yourself write to Nero, a notorious injury had been done
 to the Roman people, and to the common cause of all lieutenants, you did not
 prosecute. You said that you intended to prosecute at some other time When was that
 time? When have you prosecuted? Why have you taken so much from the rights of a
 lieutenant's rank? Why have you abandoned and betrayed the cause of the Roman
 people? Why have you passed over your own injuries, involved as they were in the
 public injury? Ought you not to have brought the cause before the senate? to have
 complained of such atrocious injuries? to have taken care that those men who had
 excited the populace should be summoned by the letters of the consuls?

Lately, when Marcus Aurelius Scaurus made the demand, because he said that he as
 quaestor had been prevented by force at Ephesus from taking his servant out of the temple of Diana, who had
 taken refuge in that asylum, Pericles, an Ephesian, a most noble man, was summoned
 to Rome , because he was accused of having
 been the author of that wrong. If you had stated to the senate that you, a
 lieutenant, had been so treated at Lampsacus , that your companions were wounded, your lictor slain, you
 yourself surrounded and nearly burnt, and that the ringleaders and principal actors
 and chiefs in that transaction were Themistagoras and Thessalus, who, you write,
 were so, who would not have been moved? Who would not have thought that he was
 taking care of himself in chastising the injury which had been done to you? Who
 would not have thought that not only your cause but that the common safety was at
 stake in that matter? In truth the name of lieutenant ought to be
 such as to pass in safety not only among the laws of allies, but even amid the arms
 of enemies.

This crime committed at Lampsacus is very
 great; a crime of lust and of the most infamous desires. Listen now to a tale of
 avarice, but little less iniquitous of its sort. He demanded of the Milesians a ship
 to attend him to Myndus as a guard. They
 immediately gave him a light vessel, a beautiful one of its class, splendidly
 adorned and armed. With this guard he went to Myndus . For, as to the wool being public property which he carried
 off from the Milesians,—as for his extravagance on his arrival,—as for his insults
 and injuries offered to the Milesian magistrates, although they might be stated not
 only truly, but also with vehemence and with indignation, still I shall pass them
 all over, and reserve them for another time to be proved by evidence. At present
 listen to this which cannot possibly be suppressed, and at the same time cannot be
 mentioned with proper dignity.

He orders the soldiers and the crew to return from Myndus to Miletus on
 foot; he himself sold that beautiful light vessel, picked out of the ten ships of
 the Milesians, to Lucius Magius and Lucius Rabius, who were living at Myndus . These are the men whom the senate lately
 voted should be considered in the number of enemies. In this vessel they sailed to
 all the enemies of the Roman people, from Dianium , which is in Spain ,
 to Senope, which is in Pontus . O ye
 immortal gods! the incredible avarice, the unheard-of audacity of such a proceeding!
 Did you dare to sell a ship of the Roman fleet, which the city of Miletus had assigned to you to attend upon you?
 If the magnitude of the crime, if the opinion of men, had no influence on you, did
 this, too, never occur to you,—that so illustrious and so noble a city would he a
 witness against you of this most wicked theft, or rather of this most abominable
 robbery?

Or because at that time Cnaeus Dolabella attempted, at your request, to punish the
 man who had been in command of that vessel, and who had reported to the Milesians
 what had been done, and had ordered his report, which according to their laws had
 been inserted in the public registers, to be erased, did you, on that account, fancy
 that you had escaped from that accusation? That opinion of yours has much deceived you, and on
 many occasions. For you have always fancied, and especially in Sicily , that you had taken sufficient precautions
 for your defence, when you had either forbidden anything to be mentioned in the
 public records, or had compelled that which had been so mentioned to be erased. How
 vain that step is, although in the former pleading you learnt it in the instance of
 many cities of Sicily , yet you may learn it
 again in the case of this city. The citizens are, indeed, obedient to the command,
 as long as they are present who give the command. As soon as they are gone, they not
 only set down that which they have been forbidden to set down, but they also write
 down the reason why it was not entered in the public records at the time.

Those documents remain at Miletus ,
 and will remain as long as that city lasts. For the Milesian people had built ten
 ships by command of Lucius Marcus out of the taxes imposed by the Roman people, as
 the other cities of Asia had done, each in
 proportion to its amount of taxation Wherefore they entered on their public records,
 that one of the ten had been lost, not by the sudden attack of pirates, but by the
 robbery of a lieutenant,—not by the violence of a storm, but by this horrible
 tempest which fell upon the allies.

There are at Rome Milesian ambassadors, most noble men and the chief men of the
 city, who, although they are waiting with apprehension for the month of February
 and the time
 of the consuls elect, yet they not only do not dare to deny such an atrocious action
 when they are asked about it, but they cannot forbear speaking of it unasked if they
 are present. They will tell you, I say, being induced by regard to religion, and by
 their fear of their laws at home, what has become of that vessel. They will declare
 to you that Caius Verres has behaved himself like a most infamous pirate in regard
 to that fleet which was built against pirates. When Caius Malleolus, the quaestor of Dolabella, had
 been slain, he thought that two inheritances had come to him; one, that of his
 quaestorian office, for he was immediately desired by Dolabella to be his
 proquaestor; the other, of a guardianship, for as he was appointed guardian of the
 young Malleolus, he immediately invaded his property.

For Malleolus had started for his province so splendidly equipped that he left
 actually nothing behind him at home. Besides, he had put out a great deal of money
 among the provincials, and had taken bills from them. He had taken with him a great
 quantity of admirably embossed silver plate. For he, too, was a companion of that
 fellow Verres in that disease and in that covetousness; and so he left behind him at
 his death a great quantity of silver plate, a great household of slaves, many
 workmen, many beautiful youths. That fellow seized all the plate that took his
 fancy; carried off all the slaves he chose; carried off the wines and all the other
 things which are procured most easily in Asia , which he had left behind: the rest he sold, and took the money
 himself.

Though it was plain that he had received two million, five hundred thousand
 sesterces , when he returned to Rome , he rendered no account to his ward, none to
 his ward's mother, none to his fellow-guardians; though he had the servants of his
 ward, who were workmen, at home, and beautiful and accomplished slaves about him, he
 said that they were his own,—that he had bought them. When the mother and
 grandmother of the boy repeatedly asked him if he would neither restore the mosey
 nor render an account, at least to say how much money of Malleolus's he had
 received, being wearied with their importunities, at last he said, a million of
 sesterces . Then on the last line of his accounts,
 he put in a name at the bottom by a most shameless erasure; he put down that he had
 paid to Chrysogonus, a slave, six hundred thousand sesterces which he had received for his ward Malleolus. How out of a
 million they became six hundred thousand; how the six hundred thousand tallied so
 exactly with other accounts,—that of the money belonging to Cnaeus Carbo there was
 also a remainder of six hundred thousand sesterces ;
 and how it was that they were put down as paid to Chrysogonus; why that name
 occurred on the bottom line of the page, and after an erasure, you will judge.

Yet, though he had entered in his accounts six hundred thousand sesterces as having been received, he has never paid over
 fifty thousand. Of the slaves, since he has been prosecuted in this manner, some
 have been restored, some are detained even now. All the gains which they had made,
 and all their substitutes are detained. This is that fellow's splendid
 guardianship. See to whom you are entrusting your children! Behold how great is the
 recollection of a dead companion! Behold how great is the fear of the opinion of the
 living! When all Asia had given herself up
 to you to be harassed and plundered, when all Pamphylia was placed at your mercy to be pillaged, were you not
 content with this rich booty? Could you not keep your hands off your guardianship,
 off your ward, off the son of your comrade? It is not now the Sicilians; they are
 now a set of ploughmen, as you are constantly saying, who are hemming you in. It is
 not the men who have been excited against you and rendered hostile to you by your
 own decrees and edicts. Malleolus is brought forward by me and his mother and his
 grandmother, who, unfortunate, and weeping, say that their boy has been stripped by
 you of his father's property.

What are you waiting for? till poor Malleolus rises from the shades below, and
 demands of you an account of your discharge of the duties of a guardian, of a
 comrade, of an intimate friend? Fancy that he is present himself, O most avaricious
 and most licentious man, restore the property of your comrade to his son; if not all
 you have robbed him of, at least that which you have confessed that you received.
 Why do you compel the son of your comrade to utter his first words in the forum with
 the voice of indignation and complaint? Why do you compel the wife of your comrade,
 the mother-in-law of your comrade, in short, the whole family of your dead comrade,
 to hear evidence against you? Why do you compel most modest and admirable women to
 come against their wont and against their will into so great an assembly of men?
 Recite the evidence of them all. [The evidence of the mother and grandmother is
 read.]

But how he as proquaestor harassed the republic of the Milyades, how he oppressed
 Lycia , Pamphylia , Piscidia, and all Phrygia , in his levying corn from them, and valuing it according to
 that valuation of his which he then devised for the first time, it is not necessary
 for me now to relate, know this much, that these articles (and all such matters were
 transacted through his instrumentality, while he levied on the cities corn, hides,
 hair-cloth, sacks, but did not receive the goods but exacted money instead of
 them),—for these articles alone damages were laid in the action against Dolabella,
 at three millions of sesterces . And all these
 things even if they were done with the consent of Dolabella, were yet all
 accomplished through the instrumentality of that man.

I will pause on one article, for many are of the same sort. Recite. “Money
 received from the actions against Cnaeus Dolabella, praetor of the Roman people,
 that which was received from the State of the Milyades...” I say that you collected
 this money, that you made this valuation, that the money was paid to you; and I
 prove that you went through every part of the province with the same violence and
 injustice, when you were collecting most enormous sums, like some disastrous tempest
 or pestilence.

Therefore Marcus Scaurus, who accused Cnaeus Dolabella, held him under his power
 and in subjection. Being a young man, when in prosecuting his inquiries he
 ascertained the numerous robberies and iniquities of that man, he acted skillfully
 and warily. He showed him a huge volume full of his exploits; he got from the fellow
 all he wanted against Dolabella. He brought him forward as a witness; the fellow
 said everything which he thought the accuser wished him to say.

And of that class of witnesses, men who were accomplices in his robberies, I might
 have had a great plenty if I had chosen to employ them; who offered of their own
 accord to go wherever I chose, in order to deliver themselves from the danger of
 actions, and from a connection with his crimes. I rejected the voluntary offers of
 all of them. There was not only no room for a traitor, there was none even for a
 deserter in my camp. Perhaps they are to be considered better accusers than I, who
 do all these things; but I wish the defender of others to be praised in my person,
 not the accuser. He does not dare bring in his accounts to the treasury before
 Dolabella is condemned. He prevails on the senate to grant him an adjournment;
 because he said that his account-books had been sealed up by the accusers of
 Dolabella; just as if he had not the power of copying them. This man is the only man
 who never renders accounts to the treasury. You have heard the accounts of his quaestorship
 rendered in three lines; but no accounts of his lieutenancy, till he was condemned
 and banished who alone could detect any error in them. The accounts of his
 praetorship, which, according to the decree of the senate, he ought to have rendered
 immediately on leaving office, he has not rendered to this very day.

He said that he was waiting for the quaestors to appear in the senate; just as if
 a praetor could not give in his accounts without the quaestor, in the same way as
 the quaestor does without the praetor, (as you did, Hortensius, and as all have
 done.) He said that Dolabella obtained the same permission. The omen pleased the
 conscript fathers rather than the excuse; they admitted it. But now the quaestors
 have arrived some time. Why have you not rendered them now? Among the accounts of
 that infamous lieutenancy and pro-quaestorship of yours, those items occur which are
 necessarily set down also in the accounts of Dolabella. (An extract is read of the
 account of the damages assessed against Dolabella, praetor of the Roman people, for
 money received.)

The sum which Dolabella entered to Verres as having been received from him, is
 less than the sum which Verres has entered as having been paid to him by four
 hundred and thirty-five thousand sesterces . The sum
 which Dolabella made out that Verres received less than he has put down in his
 account-books, is two hundred and thirty-two thousand sesterces . Dolabella also made out that on account of corn he had
 received one million and eight hundred thousand sesterces ; as to which you, O most incorruptible man, had quite a
 different entry in your account-books. Hence it is that those extraordinary gains of
 yours have accumulated, which we are examining into without any guide, article by
 article as we can;—hence the account with Quintus and Cnaeus Postumus Curtius, made
 up of many items; of which that fellow has not one in his account-books;—hence the
 fourteen hundred thousand sesterces paid to Publius
 Tadius at Athens , as I will prove by
 witnesses;—hence the praetorship, openly purchased; unless indeed that also is
 doubtful, how that man became praetor.

Oh, he was a man, indeed, of tried industry and energy, or else of a splendid
 reputation for economy, or perhaps, which is however of the least importance, for
 his constant attendance at our assemblies;—a man who had lived before his
 quaestorship with prostitutes and pimps; who had passed his quaestorship you
 yourselves know how;—who, since that infamous quaestorship, has scarcely been three
 days in Rome : who, while absent, has not
 been out of sight, but has been the common topic of conversation for every one on
 account of his countless iniquities. He, on a sudden, the moment he came to
 Rome , is made praetor for nothing!
 Besides that, other money was paid to buy off accusations. To whom it was paid is, I
 think, nothing to me; nothing to the matter in hand. That it was paid was at the
 time notorious to every one while the occurrence was recent.

O you most foolish, most senseless man, when you were making up your accounts, and
 when you wanted to shirk out of the charge of having made extraordinary gains, did
 you think that you would escape sufficiently from all suspicion, if when you lent
 men money you did not enter any sums as given to them, and put down no such item at
 all in your account-books, while the Curtii were giving you credit in their books
 for all that had been received? What good did it do you that you had not put down
 what was paid to them? Did you think you were going to try your cause by the
 production of no other account-books than your own?

However, let us now come to that splendid praetorship and to those crimes which
 are better known to those who are here present, than even to us who come prepared to
 speak after long consideration. In dealing with which, I do not doubt that I may not
 be able to avoid and escape from some blame on the ground of negligence. For many
 will say, “He said nothing of the transaction at which I was present; he never
 touched upon that injury which was done to me, or to my friend, transactions at
 which I was present.” To all those who are acquainted with the wrongs this man has
 done—that is, to the whole Roman people—I earnestly wish to make this excuse, that
 it will not be out of carelessness that I shall pass over many things, but because I
 wish to reserve some points till I produce the witnesses, and because I think it
 necessary to omit some altogether with a view to brevity, and to the time my speech
 must take. I will confess too, though against my will, that, as he never allowed any
 moment of time to pass free from crime, I have not been able to ascertain fully
 every iniquity which has been committed by him. Therefore I beg you to listen to me
 with respect to the crimes of his praetorship, expecting only to hear those
 mentioned, both in the matters of deciding law-suits and of insisting on the repair
 of public buildings, which are thoroughly worthy of a criminal whom it is not worth
 while to accuse of any small or ordinary offences.

For when he was made praetor, leaving the house of Chelidon after having taken the
 auspices, he drew the lot of the city province, more in accordance with his own
 inclination and that of Chelidon, than with the wish of the Roman people. And
 observe how he behaved at the very outset,—what his intentions were as shown in his first edict. Publius Annius Asellus died while Caius
 Sacerdos was praetor. As he had an only daughter, and as he was not included in the
 census, he did what
 nature prompted, and what no law forbade,—he appointed his daughter heiress of all
 his property. His daughter was his heiress. Everything made for the orphan; the
 equity of the law, the wish of the father, the edicts of the praetors, the usage of
 the law which existed at the time that Asellus died.

That fellow, being praetor elect, (whether being instigated by others, or being
 tempted by circumstances, or whether, from the instinctive sagacity which he has in
 such matters, he came of his own accord to this rascality, without any prompter,
 without any informer, I know not; you only know the audacity and insanity of the
 man,) appeals to Lucius Annius as the heir, (who indeed was appointed heir after the
 daughter,) for I cannot be persuaded that Verres was appealed to by him; he says
 that he can give him the inheritance by an edict; he instructs the man in what can
 be done. To the one the property appeared desirable, the other thought that he could
 sell it. Verres, although he is of singular audacity, still sent privately to the
 young girl's mother; he preferred taking money for not issuing any new edict, to
 interposing so shameful and inhuman a decree.

Her guardians, if they gave money to the praetor in the name of their ward,
 especially if it were a huge sum, did not see how they could enter it in their
 accounts; did not see how they could give it except at their own risk; and at the
 same time they did not believe that he would be so wicked. Being often applied to,
 they refused. I pray you, take notice, how equitable a decree he issued at the will
 of the man to whom he was giving the inheritance of which the children were robbed.
 “As I understand that the Lex Voconia ... ” Who
 would ever believe that Verres would be an adversary of women? or did he do
 something contrary to the interests of women, in order that the whole edict might
 not appear to have been drawn up at the will of Chelidon. He wishes, he says, to
 oppose the covetousness of men. Oh, certainly. Who, not only in the present age, but
 even in the times of our ancestors, was ever so far removed from covetousness?
 Recite what comes next, I beg; for the gravity of the man, his knowledge of the law,
 and his authority delight me. “Who, since the censorship of Aulus Postumius and
 Quintus Fulvius, has made, or shall have made....” Has made, or shall have made! who
 ever issued an edict in such a manner?

Who ever proposed by an edict any penalty or danger for an act which could not be
 provided for otherwise either before the edict or after the edict? Publius Annius had made his will in
 accordance with law, with the statutes, with the authority of all who were
 consulted; a will neither improper, nor made in disregard of any duty, nor contrary
 to human nature. But even if he had made such a will as that, still, after his death
 no new law ought to have been enacted which should have any effect on his will. I
 suppose the Voconian law pleased you greatly? You should have imitated Quintus
 Voconius himself, who did not by his law take away her inheritance from any female
 whether virgin or matron, but established a law for the future, that no one who
 after the year of the existing censors should be enrolled in the census, should make
 either virgin or matron his heir.

In the Voconian law, there is no “has made or shall have made.” Nor in any law is
 time past ever implicated in blame, except in cases which are of their own nature
 wicked and nefarious, so that, even if there were no law, they would be strenuously
 to be avoided. And in these cases we see that many things are established by law in
 such a way that things done previously cannot be called in question—the Cornelian
 law the law about testaments, the law about money, and many others, in which no new
 law is established in the nation, but it is established that what has always been an
 evil action shall be liable to public prosecution up to a certain time.

But if any one establishes any new regulation on any points of civil law, does he
 allow everything which has been previously done to remain unaltered? Look at the
 Atinian law, at the Furian law, at the Voconian law itself, as I said before; in
 short, at every law on the subject of civil rights; you will find in all of them
 that regulations are established which are only to come into operation after the
 passing of the law. Those who attribute the greatest importance to the edict, say
 that the edict of the praetor is an annual law. You embrace more in an edict than
 you can in a law. If the first of January puts an end to the edict of the praetor,
 why does not the edict have its birth also on the first of January? Or, is it the
 case that no one can advance forward by his edict into the year when another man is
 to be praetor, but that he may retire back into the year when another man has been
 praetor? And if you had published this edict for the sake of right, and not for the
 sake of one man, you would have composed it more carefully.

You write, “If any one has made, or shall have made his heir......” What are we to
 think? Suppose a man has bequeathed in legacies more than comes to his heir or
 heirs, as by the Voconian law a man may do who is not included in the census? Why do
 you not guard against this, as it comes under the same class? Because in your
 expressions you are not thinking of the interests of a class, but of an individual;
 so that it is perfectly evident that you were influenced by a desire for money. And
 if you had issued this edict with only a prospective operation, it would have been
 less iniquitous; still it would have been scandalous: but in that case, though it
 might have been blamed, it could not have been doubted about, for no one would have
 broken it. Now it is an edict of such a sort, that any one can see that it was
 written, not for the people, but for the second heir of Publius Annius.

Therefore, though that heading had been embellished by you with so many words, and
 with that mercenary preamble, was any praetor found afterwards to draw up an edict
 in similar style? Not only no one ever did publish such an edict, but no one was
 ever apprehensive even of any one publishing such an edict. For after your
 praetorship many people made wills in the same manner, and among them Annia did so
 lately. She, by the advice of many of her relations, being a wealthy woman, because
 she was not included in the census, by her will made her daughter her heiress. This,
 now, is great proof of men's opinion of the singular wickedness of that fellow,
 that, though Verres had established this of his own accord, yet no one was
 apprehensive that any one could be found to adopt the rule which he had laid down.
 For you alone were found to be a man who could not be satisfied with correcting the
 wills of the living, unless you also rescinded those of the dead.

You yourself removed this clause from your Sicilian edict. You wished, if any
 matters arose unexpectedly, to decide them according to your edict as praetor of the
 city. The defence which you left yourself afterwards you yourself greatly injured,
 when you yourself, in your provincial edict, repudiated your own authority.
 And I do not doubt that
 as this action appears bitter and unworthy to me, to whom my daughter is very dear,
 it appears so also to each one of you who is influenced by a similar feeling and
 love for his daughters. For what has nature ordained to be more agreeable and more
 dear to us? What is more worthy to have all our affections and all our indulgence
 expended upon it?

O most infamous of men, why did you do so great an injury to Publius Annius after
 death? Why did you cause such indelible grief to his ashes and bones, as to take
 from his children the property of their father given to then? by the will of their
 father in accordance with the law and with the statutes, and to give them to
 whomsoever you pleased? Shall the praetor be able, when we are dead, to take away
 our property and our fortunes from those to whom we give them while alive? He says,
 “I will neither give any right of petition, nor possession.” Will you, then, take
 away from a young girl her purple-bordered robe? Will you take away, not only the
 ornaments of her fortune, but those also denoting her noble birth? Do we marvel that
 the citizens of Lampsacus flew to arms
 against that man? Do we marvel that when he was leaving his province, he fled
 secretly from Syracuse as if we were
 as indignant at what happens to others as at our own injury there would not be a
 relic of that man left to appear in the forum.

The father gives to his daughter: you forbid it. The laws allow it: yet you
 interpose your authority. He gives to her of his own property in such a manner as
 not to infringe any law. What do you find to blame in that? Nothing, I think. But I
 allow you to do so. Forbid it if you can; if you can find any one to listen to you;
 if any one can possibly obey your order. Will you take away their will from the
 dead,—their property from the living,—their rights from all men? Would not the Roman
 people have avenged itself by force if it had not reserved you for this occasion and
 for this trial? Since the establishment of the praetorian power, we have always
 adopted this principle,—that if no will was produced, then possession was given to
 that person who would have had the best right to be the heir, if the deceased had
 died intestate. Why this is the most righteous principle it is easy to show; but in
 a matter so established by precedent it is sufficient to point out that all men had
 previously laid down the law in this way, and that this was the ancient and
 customary edict.

Listen to another new edict of the fellow in a case of frequent occurrence; and
 then, while there is any place where civil law can be learnt, pray send all the
 youths of Rome to his lectures. The genius
 of the man is marvellous; his prudence is marvellous. A man of the name of Minucius
 died while he was praetor. He left no will. By law his inheritance passed to the
 Minucian family. If Verres had issued the edict which all praetors both before and
 after him did issue, possession would have been given to the Minucian family. If any
 thought himself heir by will, though no will was known, he might proceed by law to
 put forward his claim to the inheritance; or if he had taken security for the claim,
 and given security, he then proceeded to try an action for his inheritance. This is
 the law which, as I imagine, both our ancestors and we ourselves have always been
 accustomed to. See, now, how that fellow amended it.

He composes an edict;—such language that any one can perceive that it was written
 for the sake of one individual. He all but names the man; he details his whole
 cause; he disregards right, custom, equity, the edicts of all his predecessors.
 “According to the edict of the city praetor,—if any doubt arises about an
 inheritance, if the possessor does not give security....” What is it to the praetor
 which is the possessor? Is not this the point which ought to be inquired into, who
 ought to be the possessor? Therefore, because he is in possession, you do not remove
 him from the possession. If he were not in possession, you would not give him
 possession. For you nowhere say so; nor do you embrace anything else in your edict
 except that cause for which you had received money. What follows is ridiculous.

“If any doubt arises about an inheritance, and if testamentary papers are produced
 before me, sealed with not fewer seals than are required by law, I shall adjudge the
 inheritance as far as possible according to the testamentary papers.” So far is
 usual. This ought to follow next: “If testamentary papers are not produced....” What
 says he? That he will adjudge it to him who says he is the heir. What, then, is the
 difference whether testamentary papers are produced or not? If he produces them,
 though they may have only one seal less than is required by law, you will not give
 him possession; but if he produces no such papers at all, you will. What shall I say
 now? That no one else ever issued a similar edict afterwards? A very marvellous
 thing, truly, that there should have been no one who chose to be considered like
 that fellow! He himself, in his Sicilian edict, has not this passage. No; for he had
 received his payment for it. And so in the edict which I have mentioned before,
 which he issued in Sicily , about giving
 possession of inheritances, he laid down the same rules which all the praetors at
 Rome had laid down besides himself. From
 the Sicilian edict,—“If any doubt arise about an inheritance...”

But, in the name of the immortal gods, what can possibly be said of this business?
 For I ask of you now a second time, as I did just now, with reference to the affair
 of Annia, about the inheritance of females,—I ask you now, I say, about the
 possession of inheritances,—why you were unwilling to transfer those paragraphs into
 your provincial edict? Did you think those men who were living in the province more
 worthy to enjoy just laws than we were? Or is one thing just in Rome and another in Sicily ? For you cannot say in this place that there are many things
 in the province which require to be regulated differently from what they would if
 they existed at Rome ; at all events not in
 the case of taking possession of inheritances, or of the inheritances of women. For
 in both these cases I see that nor only all other magistrates, but that you
 yourself, have issued edicts word for word the same as those which are accustomed to
 be issued at Rome . The clauses which, with
 great disgrace and for a great bribe, you had inserted in your edict at Rome , those alone, I see, you omitted in your
 Sicilian edict, in order not to incur odium in the province for nothing.

And as, while he was praetor elect, he composed his whole edict at the pleasure of
 those who bought law of him to secure their own advantage; so also, when he had
 entered on his office, he used to make decrees contrary to his edict without the
 slightest scruple. Therefore, Lucius Piso filled many books with the affairs in
 which he had interposed his authority, because Verres had decreed in a manner
 contrary to his edict. And I think that you have not forgotten what a multitude and
 what respectable citizens used to assemble before Piso's seat while that man was
 praetor, and unless he had had him for a colleague, he would have been stoned in the
 very forum. But his injuries at that time appeared of less importance, because there
 was a refuge always ready in the justice and prudence of Piso, whom men could apply
 to without any labour, or any trouble, or any expense, and even without a patron to
 recommend them.

For, I entreat you, recall to your recollection, O judges, what licence that
 fellow took in determining the law; how great a variation there was in his decrees,
 what open buying and selling of justice; how empty the houses of all those men who
 were accustomed to be consulted on points of civil law, how full and crammed was the
 house of Chelidon. And when men had come from that woman to him, and had whispered
 in his ear, at one time he would recall those between whom he had just decided, and
 alter his decree; at another time he, without the least scruple, gave a decision
 between other parties quite contrary to the last decision which he had given only a
 little while before.

Hence it was that men were found who were even ridiculous in their indignation;
 some of whom, as you have heard, said that it was not strange that such piggish
 justice should be worthless. Others were colder; but still, because
 they were angry they seemed ridiculous, while they execrated Sacerdos who had spared
 so worthless a boar. And I should hardly mention these things, for they were not
 extraordinarily witty, nor are they worthy of the gravity of the present subject, if
 I did not wish you to recollect that his worthlessness and iniquity were constantly
 in the mouths of the populace, and had become a common proverb.

But shall I first speak of his arrogance towards the Roman people, or his cruelty?
 Beyond all question, cruelty is the graver and more atrocious crime. Do you think
 then that these men have forgotten how that fellow was accustomed to beat the common
 people of Rome with rods? And indeed a
 tribune of the people touched on that matter in the public assembly, when he
 produced in the sight of the Roman people the man whom he had beaten with rods. And
 I will give you the opportunity of taking cognisance of that business at its proper
 time.

But who is ignorant with what arrogance he behaved? how he disregarded every one
 of a low condition, how he despised them, how he did not account the poor to be free
 men at all? Publius Trebonius made many virtuous and honourable men his heirs; and
 among them his own freedman. He had had a brother, Aulus Trebonius, a proscribed
 man. As he wished to make provision for him, he put down in his will, that his heirs
 should take an oath to manage that not less than half of each man's share should
 come to Aulus Trebonius, that proscribed brother of his. The freedman takes the
 oath; the other heirs go to Verres, and point out to him that they ought not to take
 such an oath; that they should be doing what was contrary to the Cornelian law, which forbids a proscribed man to be
 assisted. They obtain from him authority to refuse the oath. He gives them
 possession; that I do not find fault with. Certainly it was a scandalous thing for
 any part of his brother's property to be given to a man who was proscribed and in
 want. But that freedman thought that he should be committing a wickedness if he did
 not take the oath in obedience to the will of his patron.

Therefore Verres declares that he will not give him possession of his inheritance,
 in order that he may not be able to assist his proscribed patron; and also in order
 that that might serve as a punishment for having obeyed the will of his other
 patron. You give possession to him who did not take the oath. I admit your right to
 do so; it is a privilege of the praetor. You take it from him who has taken the
 oath. According to what precedent? He is aiding a proscribed man. There is a law;
 there is a punishment established in such a case. What is that to him who is
 determining the law? Do you blame him because he assisted his patron, who was in
 distress at the time, or because he attended to the wishes of his other patron, who
 was dead, from whom he had received the greatest of all benefits? Which of these
 actions are you blaming? And then that most admirable man, sitting on his curule
 chair, said this: “Can a freedman be heir to a Roman knight of such great wealth?” O
 how modest must the class of freedmen be, since he departed from that place alive!

I can produce six hundred decrees in which, even if I were not to allege that
 money had interrupted justice, still the unprecedented and iniquitous nature of the
 decrees themselves would prove it. But that by one example you may be able to form
 your conjectures as to the rest, listen to what you have already heard in the
 previous pleading. There
 was a man called Caius Sulpicius Olympus. He died while Caius Sacerdos was praetor.
 I don't know whether it was not before Verres had begun to announce himself as a
 candidate for the praetorship. He made Marcus Octavius Ligur his heir. Ligur thus
 entered upon his inheritance; he took possession while Sacerdos was praetor, without
 any dispute. After Verres entered on his office, in accordance with his edict, an
 edict such as Sacerdos had not issued, the daughter of the patron of Sulpicius began
 to claim from Ligur a sixth part of the inheritance. Ligur was absent. His brother
 Lucius conducted his cause; his friends
 and relations were present. That fellow Verres said that, unless the business was
 settled with the woman, he should order her to take possession. Lucius Gellius
 defended the cause of Ligur. He showed that his edict ought not to prevail with
 respect to those inheritances which had accrued to the heirs before his praetorship;
 that, if this edict had existed at that time, perhaps Ligur would not have entered
 upon the inheritance at all. This just demand, and the highest authority of
 influential men, was beaten down by money.

Ligur came to Rome ; he did not doubt
 that, if he himself had seen Verres, he should have been able to move the man by the
 justice of his cause and by his own influence. He went to him to his house; he
 explains the whole business; he points out to him how long ago it was that the
 inheritance had come to him and, as it was easy for an able man to do in a most just
 cause, he said many things which might have influenced any one. At last he began to
 entreat him not to despise his influence and scorn his authority to such an extent
 as to inflict such an injury upon him. The fellow began to accuse Ligur of being so
 assiduous and so attentive in a business which was adventitious, and only belonging
 to him by way of inheritance. He said that he ought to have a regard for him also;
 that he required a great deal himself; that the dogs whom he kept about him required
 a great deal. I cannot recount those things to you more plainly than you have heard
 Ligur himself relate them in his evidence.

What are we to say, then, O Verres? Are we not to give credence to even these men
 as witnesses? Are these things not material to the question before us? Are we not to
 believe Marcus Octavius? Are we not to believe Lucius Ligur? Who will believe us?
 Who shall we believe? What is there, O Verres which can ever be made plain by
 witnesses, if this is not made so? Or is that which they relate a small thing? It is
 nothing less than the praetor of the city establishing this law as long as he
 remains in office,—that the praetor ought to be co-heir with all those to whom an
 inheritance comes. And can we doubt with what language that fellow was accustomed to
 address the rest of the citizens of an inferior rank, of inferior authority, and of
 inferior fortune; with what language he was accustomed to address country people
 from the municipal towns; with what language he was accustomed to address those whom
 he never thought free men,—I mean, the freedmen; when he did not hesitate to ask
 Marcus Octavius Ligur, a man of the highest consideration as to position, rank,
 name, virtue, ability, and influence, for money for deciding in favour of his
 undoubted lights? And as
 to how he behaved in the matter of putting the public buildings in proper repair,
 what shall I say? They have said, who felt it. There are others, too, who are
 speaking of this.

Notorious and manifest facts have been brought forward, and shall be brought
 forward again. Caius Fannius, a Roman knight, the brother of Quintus Titinius, one
 of your judges, has said that he gave you money. Recite the evidence of Caius
 Fannius. [Read.] Pray do not believe Caius Fannius when he says this; do not
 believe—you I mean, O Quintus Titinius—do not believe Caius Fannius, your own
 brother. For he is saying what is incredible. He is accusing Caius Verres of avarice
 and audacity; vices which appear to meet in any one else rather than in him. Quintus
 Tadius has said something of the same sort, a most intimate friend of the father of
 Verres, and not unconnected with his mother, either in family or in name. He has
 produced his account-books, by which he proves that he had given him money. Recite
 the particulars of the accounts of Quintus Tadius. [Read.] Recite the evidence of
 Quintus Tadius. [Read.] Shall we not believe either the account-books of Quintus
 Tadius, or his evidence? What then shall we follow in coming to our decision? What
 else is giving all men free licence for every possible sin and crime, if it is not
 the disbelieving the evidence of the most honourable men, and the account books of
 honest ones?

For why should I mention the daily conversation and daily complaints of the Roman
 people?—why that fellow's most impudent theft, I should rather say, his new and
 unexampled robber? how he dared in the temple of Castor, in that most illustrious
 and renowned monument, a temple which is placed before the eyes and in the daily
 view of the Roman people, to which the senate is often summoned, where crowded
 deliberations on the most momentous affairs take place every day, why should I
 mention his having dared to leave in that place, in contempt of anything any one can
 say, an eternal monument of his audacity?

Publius Junius , O judges, had the
 guardianship, of the temple of Castor. He died in the consulship of Lucius Sulla and
 Quintus Metellus. He left behind him a young son under age. When Lucius Octavius and
 Caius Aurelius the consuls had let out contracts for the holy temple, and were not
 able to examine all the public buildings to see in what repair they were; nor could
 the praetors to whom that business had been assigned, namely, Caius Sacerdos and
 Marcus Caesius; a decree of the senate was passed that Caius Verres and Publius
 Caelius, the praetors should examine into and decide about those public buildings as
 to which no examination or decision had yet taken place. And after this power was
 conferred on him, that man, as you have learnt from Caius Fannius and from Quintus
 Tadius, as he had committed his robberies in every sort of affair without the least
 disguise and with the greatest effrontery, wished to leave this as a most visible
 record of his robberies, which we might, not occasionally hear of, but see every day
 of our lives.

He inquired who was bound to deliver up the temple of Castor in good repair. He
 knew that Junius himself was dead; he
 desired to know to whom his property belonged. He hears that his son is under age.
 The fellow, who had been in the habit of saying openly that boys and girls who were
 minors were the surest prey for the praetors, said that the thing he had so long
 wished for had been brought into his bosom. He thought that, in the care of a
 monument of such vast size, of such laborious finish, however sound and in however
 thorough a state of repair it might be, he should certainly find something to do,
 and some excuse for plunder.

The temple of Castor ought to have been entrusted to Lucius Rabonius. He by chance
 was the guardian of the young Junius by his
 father's will. An agreement had been made between him and his ward, without any
 injury to either, in what state it should be given up to him. Verres summons
 Rabonius to appear before him he asks him whether there is anything which has not
 been handed over to him by his ward, which might be exacted from him. When he said,
 as was the case, that the delivery of the temple had been very easy for his ward;
 that all the statues and presents were in their places, that the temple itself was
 sound in every part; that fellow began to think it a shameful thing if he was to
 give up so large a temple and so extensive a work without enriching himself by
 booty, and especially by booty to be got from a minor.

He comes himself into the temple of Castor; he looks all over the temple; he sees
 the roof adorned all over with a most splendid ceiling, and all the rest of the
 building as good as new and quite sound. He ponders; he considers what he can do.
 Some one of those dogs, of whom he himself had said to Ligur that there were a great
 number about him, said to him—“You, O Verres, have nothing which you can do here,
 unless you like to try the pillars by a plumb-line.” The man, utterly ignorant of
 everything, asks what is the meaning of the expression, “by a plumb-line.” They tell
 him that there is hardly any pillar which is exactly perpendicular when tried by a
 plumb-line. “By my truth,” says he, “that is what we must do; let the pillars be
 tested by a plumb-line.”

Rabonius, like a man who knew the law, in which law the number of the pillars only
 is set down, but no mention made of a plumb-line, and who did not think it desirable
 for himself to receive the temple on such terms, lest he should be hereafter
 expected to hand it over under similar conditions, says that he is not to be treated
 in that way, and that such an examination has no right to be made. Verres orders
 Rabonius to be quiet, and at the same time holds out to him some hopes of a
 partnership with himself in the business. He easily overpowers him, a moderate man,
 and not at all obstinate in his opinions; and so he adheres to his determination of
 having the pillars examined.

This unprecedented resolve, and the unexpected calamity of the minor, is
 immediately reported to Caius Mustius, the step-father of the youth, who is lately
 dead; to Marcus John Adams , his uncle, and
 to Publius Potitius, his guardian, a most frugal man. They report the business to a
 man of the greatest consideration, of the greatest benevolence and virtue, Marcus
 Marcellus, who was also a guardian of the minor. Marcus Marcellus comes to Verres;
 he begs of him with many arguments, in the name of his own good faith and diligence
 in his office, not to endeavour to deprive
 Junius his ward of his father's fortune by
 the greatest injustice. Verres, who had already in hope and belief devoured that
 booty, was neither influenced by the justice of Marcus Marcellus's argument, nor by
 his authority. And therefore he answered that he should proceed with the
 examination, according to the orders which he had given.

As they found that or all applications to this man were ineffectual, all access to
 him difficult, and almost impossible, being, as he was, a man with whom neither
 right, nor equity, nor mercy, nor the arguments of a relation, nor the wishes of a
 friend, nor the influence of any one had any weight, they resolve that the best
 thing which they could do, as indeed might have occurred to any one, was to beg
 Chelidon for her aid, who, while Verres was praetor, was not only the real judge in
 all civil law, and in the disputes of all private individuals, but who was supreme
 also in this affair of the repairs of the public buildings.

Caius Mustius, a Roman knight, a farmer of the revenues, a man of the very highest
 honour, came to Chelidon. Marcus Junius , the
 uncle of the youth, a most frugal and temperate man, came to her; a man who shows
 his regard for his high rank by the greatest honour, and modesty, and attention to
 his duties. Publius Potitius, his guardian, came to her. Oh that praetorship of
 yours, bitter to many, miserable, scandalous? To say nothing of other points, with
 what shame, with what indignation, do you think that such men as these went to the
 house of a prostitute? men who would have encountered such disgrace on no account,
 unless the urgency of their duty and of their relationship to the injured youth had
 compelled them to do so. They came, as I say, to Chelidon. The house was full; new
 laws, new decrees, new decisions were being solicited: “Let him give me possession.”
 ... “Do not let him take away from me.”... “Do not let him give sentence against
 me.”.... “Let him adjudge the property to me.” Some were paying money, some were
 signing documents. The house was full, not with a prostitute's train, but rather
 with a crowd seeking audience of the praetor.

As soon as they can get access to her, the men whom I have mentioned go to her.
 Mustius speaks, he explains the whole affair, he begs for her assistance, he
 promises money. She answers, considering she was a prostitute, not unreasonably: she
 says that she will gladly do what they wish, and that she will talk the matter over
 with Verres carefully; and desires Mustius to come again. Then they depart. The next
 day they go again. She says that the man cannot be prevailed on, that he says that a
 vast sum can be made of the business. I am afraid that perhaps some of the people, who were not present at
 the former pleading, (because these things seem incredible on account of their
 consummate baseness,) may think that they are invented by me. You, O judges, have
 known them before.

Publius Potitius, the guardian of the minor
 Junius , stated them on his oath. So did
 Marcus Junius, his uncle and guardian. So would Mustius have stated them if he had
 been alive; but as Mustius cannot, Lucius Domitius stated that while the affair was
 recent, he heard these things stated by Mustius; and though he knew that I had had
 the account from Mustius while he was alive, for I was very intimate with him; (and
 indeed I defended Caius Mustius when he gained that trial which he had about almost
 the whole of his property ;) though, I say, Lucius Domitius knew that I was aware
 that Mustius was accustomed to tell him all his affairs, yet he said nothing about
 Chelidon as long as he could help it; he directed his replies to other points. So
 great was the modesty of that most eminent young man, of that pattern for the youth
 of the city, that for some time, though he was pressed by me on that point, he would
 rather give any answer than mention the name of Chelidon. At first, he said that the
 friends of Verres had been deputed to mention the subject to him; at last, after a
 time, being absolutely compelled to do so, he named Chelidon.

Are you not ashamed, O Verres, to have carried on your praetorship according to
 the will of that woman, whom Lucius Domitius scarcely thought it creditable to him
 even to mention the name of? Being rejected by Chelidon, they adopt the necessary resolution of
 undertaking the business themselves. They settle the business, which ought to have
 come to scarcely forty thousand sesterces , with
 Rabonius the other guardian, for two hundred thousand. Rabonius reports the fact to
 Verres; as it seems to him the exaction has been sufficiently enormous and
 sufficiently shameless. He, who had expected a good deal more, receives Rabonius
 with harsh language, and says that he cannot satisfy him with such a settlement as
 that. To cut the matter short, he says that he shall issue contracts for the job.

The guardians are ignorant of this; they think that what has been settled with
 Rabonius is definitely arranged—they fear no further misfortune for their ward. But
 Verres does not procrastinate; he begins to let out his contracts, (without issuing
 any advertisement or notice of the day,) at a most unfavourable time—at the very
 time of the Roman games, and while the forum is decorated for them. Therefore
 Rabonius gives notice to the guardians that he renounces the settlement to which he
 had come. However, the guardians come at the appointed time; Junius, the uncle of
 the youth, bids. Verres began to change colour: his countenance, his speech, his
 resolution failed him. He begins to consider what he was to do. If the contract was
 taken by the minor, if the affair slipped through the fingers of the purchaser whom
 he himself had provided, he would get no plunder. Therefore He contrives—what?
 Nothing very cleverly, nothing of which any one could say, “it was a rascally trick,
 but still a deep one.” Do not expect any disguised roguery from him, any underhand
 trick; you will find everything open, undisguised, shameless, senseless, audacious.

“If the contract be taken by the minor, all the plunder is snatched out of my
 hands; what then is the remedy? What? The minor must not be allowed to have the
 contract.” Where is the usage in the case of selling property, securities, or lands
 adopted by every consul, and censor, and praetor, and quaestor, that that bidder
 shall have the preference to whom the property belongs, and at whose risk the
 property is sold? He excludes that bidder alone to whom alone, I was nearly saying,
 the power of taking the contract ought to have been offered. “For why,”—so the youth
 might say—“should any one aspire to my money against my will! What does he come
 forward for? The contract is let out for a work which is to be done and paid for out
 of my money. I say that it is I who am going to put the place in repair, the
 inspection of it afterwards will belong to you who let out the contract. You have
 taken sufficient security for the interests of the people with bonds and sureties;
 and if you do not think sufficient security has been taken, will you as praetor send
 whomsoever you please to take possession of my property, and not permit me to come
 forward in defence of my own fortune?”

It is worth while to consider the words of the contract itself. You will say that
 the same man drew it up who drew up that edict about inheritance. “The contract for
 work to be done, which the minor Junius's....” Speak, I pray you, a little more
 plainly. “Caius Verres, the praetor of the city, has added....” The contracts of the
 censors are being amended. For what do they say? I see in many old documents,
 “Cnaeus Domitius, Lucius Metellus, Lucius Cassius, Cnaeus Servilius have added....”
 Caius Verres wants something of the same sort. Read. What has he added? “Admit not
 as a partner in this work any one who has taken a contract from Lucius Marcius and
 Marcus Perperna the censors; give him no snare in it; and let him not contract for
 it.” Why so? Is it that the work may not be faulty? But the inspection afterwards
 belonged to you. Lest he should not have capital enough? But sufficient security had
 been taken for the people's interest in bonds and sureties, and more security still
 might have been had.

If in this case the business itself, if the scandalous nature of your injustice
 had no weight with you;—if the misfortune of this minor, the tears of his relations,
 the peril of Decimus Brutus, whose lands were pledged as security for him, and the
 authority of Marcus Marcellus his guardian had no influence with you, did you not
 even consider this, that your crime would be such that you would neither be able to
 deny it, (for you had entered it in your account-books,) nor, if you confessed it,
 to make any excuse for it? The contract is knocked down at five hundred and fifty
 thousand sesterces , while the guardians kept crying
 out that they could do it even to the satisfaction of the most unjust of men, for
 eighty thousand. In truth, what was the job?

That which you saw. All those pillars which you see whitewashed, had a crane put
 against them, were taken down at a very little expense, and put up again of the same
 stone as before. And you let this work out for five hundred and sixty thousand
 sesterces . And among those pillars I say that
 there are some which have never been moved at all by your contractor. I say that
 there are some which only had the outer coat scraped off, and a fresh coat put on.
 But, if I had thought that it cost so much to whitewash pillars, I should certainly
 never have stood for the aedileship. Still, in order that something might appear to
 be really being done, and that it might not seem to be a mere robbery of a minor—“If
 in the course of the work you injure anything, you must repair it.”

What was there that he could injure, when he was only putting back every stone in
 its place? “He who takes the contract must give security to bear the man harmless
 who has taken the work from the former contractor.” He is joking when he orders
 Rabonius to give himself security. “Ready money is to be paid.” Out of what funds?
 From his funds who cried out that he would do for eighty thousand sesterces what you let out at five hundred and sixty
 thousand. Out of what funds? out of the funds of a minor, whose tender age and
 desolate condition, even if he had no guardians, the praetor himself ought to
 protect. But as his guardians did protect him, you took away not only his paternal
 fortune, but the property of the guardians also.

“Execute the work in the best materials of every sort.” Was any stone to be cut
 and brought to the place? Nothing was to be brought but the crane. For no stone, no
 materials at all were brought; there was just as much to be done in that contract as
 took a little labour of artisans at low wages, and there was the hire of the crane.
 Do you think it was less work to make one entirely new pillar without any old stone,
 which could be worked up again, or to put back those four in their places? No one
 doubts that it is a much a better job to make one new one. I will prove that in
 private houses, where there has been a great deal of expensive carriage, pillars no
 smaller than these are contracted for to be placed in an open court for forty
 thousand sesterces apiece.

But it is folly to argue about such manifest shamelessness of that man at any
 greater length, especially when in the whole contract he has openly disregarded the
 language and opinion of every one, inasmuch as he has added at the bottom of it,
 “Let him have the old materials for himself.” As if any old materials were taken
 from that work, and as if the whole work were not done with old materials. But
 still, if the minor was not allowed to take the contract, it was not necessary for
 it to come to Verres himself: some other of the citizens might have undertaken the
 work. Every one else was excluded no less openly than the minor. He appointed a day
 by which the work must be completed—the first of December. He gives out the contract
 about the thirteenth of September: every one is excluded by the shortness of the
 time. What happens then? How does Rabonius contrive to have his work done by that
 day?

No one troubles Rabonius, neither on the first of December, nor on the fifth, nor
 on the thirteenth. At last Verres himself goes away to his province some time before
 the work is completed. After he was prosecuted, at first he said that he could not
 enter the work in his accounts; when Rabonius pressed it, he attributed the cause of
 it to me, because I had sealed up his books. Rabonius applies to me, and sends his
 friends to apply to me; he easily gets what he wishes for; Verres did not know what
 he was to do. By not having entered it in his accounts, he thought he should be able
 to make some defence; but he felt sure that Rabonius would reveal the whole of the
 transaction. Although, what could be more plain than it now is, even without the
 evidence of any witness whatever. At last he enters the work in Rabonius's name as
 undertaken by him, four years after the day which he had fixed for its completion.

He would never have allowed such terms as those if any other citizen had been the
 contractor; when he had shut out all the other contractors by the early day which he
 had fixed, and also because men did not choose to put themselves in the power of a
 man who, if they took the contract, thought that his plunder was torn from his
 hands. For why need we discuss the point where the money went to? He himself has
 showed us. First of all, when Decimus Brutus contended eagerly against him, who paid
 five hundred and sixty thousand sesterces of his
 own money; and as he could not resist him, though he had given out the job, and
 taken securities for its execution, he returned him a hundred and ten thousand. Now
 if this had been another man's money, he clearly could not have done so. In the
 second place, the money was paid to Cornificius, whom he cannot deny to have been
 his secretary. Lastly, the accounts of Rabonius himself cry out loudly that the
 plunder was Verres's own. Read “The items of the accounts of Rabonius.”

Even in this place in the former pleadings Quintus Hortensius complained that the
 young Junius came clad in his praetexta into your presence, and
 stood with his uncle while he was giving his evidence; and said that I was seeking
 to rouse the popular feeling, and to excite odium against him, by producing the boy.
 What then was there, O Hortensius, to rouse the popular feeling? what was there to
 excite odium in that boy, I suppose, forsooth, I had brought forward the son of
 Gracchus, or of Saturninus, or of some man of that sort, to excite the feelings of
 an ignorant multitude by the mere name and recollection of his father. He was the
 son of Publius Junius, one of the common people of Rome ; whom his dying father thought he ought to recommend to the
 protection of guardians and relations, and of the laws, and of the equity of the
 magistrates, and of your administration of justice.

He, through the wicked letting out of contracts by that man, and through his
 nefarious robbery, being deprived of all his paternal property and fortune, came
 before your tribunal, if for nothing else, at least to see him through whose conduct
 he himself has passed many years in mourning, a little less gaily dressed than he was used
 to be. Therefore, O Hortensius, it was not his age but his cause, not his dress but
 his fortune, that seemed to you calculated to rouse the popular feeling. Nor did it
 move you so much that he had come with the praetexta, as that he had come without
 the bulla . For
 no one was influenced by that dress which custom and the right of his free birth
 allowed him to wear. Men were indignant, and very indignant, that the ornament of
 childhood which his father had given him, the proof and sign of his good fortune,
 had been taken from him by that robber.

Nor were the tears which were shed for him shed more by the people than by us, and
 by yourself, O Hortensius, and by those who are to pronounce sentence in this cause.
 For because it is the common cause of all men, the common danger of all men, such
 wickedness like a conflagration must be put out by the common endeavours of all men.
 For we have little children; it is uncertain how long the life of each individual
 among us may last. We, while alive, ought to take care and provide that their
 desolate condition and childhood may be secured by the strongest possible
 protection. For who is there who can defend the childhood of our children against
 the dishonesty of magistrates? Their mother, I suppose. No doubt, the mother of
 Annia, though a most noble woman, was a great protection to her when she was left a
 minor. No doubt she, by imploring the aid of gods and men, prevented him from
 robbing her infant ward of her father's fortunes. Can their guardians defend them?
 Very easily, no doubt, with a praetor of that sort by whom both the arguments, and
 the earnestness, and the authority of Marcus Marcellus in the cause of his ward
 Junius were disregarded.

Do we ask what he did in the distant province of Phrygia ? what in the most remote parts of Pamphylia ? What a robber of pirates he proved
 himself in war, who had been found to be a nefarious plunderer of the Roman people
 in the forum? Do we doubt what that man would do with respect to spoils taken from
 the enemy, who appropriated to himself so much plunder from the spoils of Lucius
 Metellus? who let out a contract for
 whitewashing four pillars at a greater price than Metellus paid for erecting the
 whole of them? Must we wait to hear what the witnesses from Sicily say? Who has ever seen that temple who is not
 a witness of your avarice, of your injustice, of your audacity? Who has ever come
 from the statue of Vertumnus into the Circus Maximus, without being reminded at
 every step of your avarice? for that road, the road of the sacred cars and of such
 solemn processions, you have had repaired in such a way that you yourself do not
 dare go by it. Can any one think that when you were separated from Italy by the sea you spared the allies? You who
 chose the temple of Castor to be the witness of your thefts which the Roman people
 saw every day, and even the judges at the very moment that they were giving their
 decision concerning you.

And he, even during his praetorship, exercised the office of judge in public
 cases. For even that must not be passed over. A fine was sought to
 be recovered from Quintus Opimius before him while praetor; who was brought to
 trial, as it was alleged, indeed, because while tribune of the people he had
 interposed his veto in a manner contrary to the Cornelian law, but, in reality,
 because while tribune of the people he had said something which gave offence to some
 one of the nobles. And if I were to wish to say anything of that decision, I should
 have to call in question and to attack many people, which it is not necessary for me
 to do. I will only say that a few arrogant men, to say the least of them, with his
 assistance, ruined all the fortunes of Quintus Opimius in fun and joke.

Again; does he complain of me, because the first pleading
 of his cause was brought to an end by me in nine days only; when before himself as
 judge. Quintus Opimius, a senator of the Roman people, in three hours lost his
 property, his position, and all his titles of honour? On account of the scandalous
 nature of which decision, the question has often been mooted in the senate of taking
 away the whole class of fines and sentences of that sort. But what plunder he
 amassed in selling the property of Quintus Opimius, and how openly, how scandalously
 he amassed it, it would take too long to relate now. This I say,—unless I make it
 plain to you by the account-books of most honourable men, believe that I have
 invented it all for the present occasion.

Now the man who profiting by the disaster of a Roman senator, at whose trial he
 had presided while praetor, endeavoured to strip him of his spoils and carry them to
 his own house, has he a right to deprecate any calamity to himself? For as for the choosing of other
 judges by Junius, of
 that I say nothing. For why should I? Should I venture to speak against the lists
 which you produced? It is difficult to do so; for not only does your own influence
 and that of the judges deter me, but also the golden ring of your secretary. I will not say that which it is
 difficult to prove; I will say this—which I will prove,—that many men of the first
 consequence heard you say that you ought to be pardoned for having produced a false
 list, for that, unless you had guarded against it, you yourself would also have been
 ruined by the same storm of unpopularity as that under which Caius Junius fell.

In this way has that fellow learnt to take care of himself and of his own safety,
 by entering both in his own private registers and in the public documents what had
 never happened; by effacing all mention of what had; and by continually taking away
 something, changing something (taking care that no erasure was visible),
 interpolating something. For he has come to such a pitch, that he cannot even find a
 defence for his crimes without committing other grimes. That most senseless man
 thought that such a substitution of his own judges also could be effected by the
 instrumentality of his comrade, Quintus Curtius, who was to be principal judge; and
 unless I had prevented that by the power of the people, and the outcries and
 reproaches of all men, the advantage of having judges taken from this decuria of our body, whose
 influence it was desirable for me should be rendered as extensive an possible, while
 he was substituting others for them without any reason, and placing on the bench
 those whom Verres had approved.

Many things, O judges, must be necessarily passed over by me, in order that I may
 be able at last to speak in some manner of those matters which have been entrusted
 to my good faith. For I have undertaken the cause of Sicily ; that is the province which has tempted me to this business.
 But when I took upon myself this burden, and undertook the cause of Sicily , in my mind I embraced a wider range, for I
 took upon myself also the cause of my whole order—I took upon myself the cause of
 the Roman people; because I thought that in that case alone could a just decision be
 come to, if not only a wicked criminal was brought up, but if at the same time a
 diligent and firm accuser came before the court.

On which account I must the sooner come to the cause of Sicily omitting all mention of his other thefts and
 iniquities, in order that I may be able to handle it while my strength is yet
 unimpaired, and that I may have time enough to dilate fully on the business. And
 before I begin to speak of the distresses of Sicily , it seems to me that I ought to say a little of the dignity
 and antiquity of that province, and of the advantage which it is to us. For as you
 ought to have a careful regard for all the allies and provinces, so especially ought
 you to have a regard for Sicily , O judges,
 for many, and those the greatest, reasons:—First, because of all foreign nations
 Sicily was the first who joined herself
 to the friendship and alliance of the Roman people. She was the first to be called a
 province; and the provinces are a great ornament to the empire. She was the first
 who taught our ancestors how glorious a thing it was to rule over foreign nations.
 She alone has displayed such good faith and such good will towards the Roman people,
 that the states of that island which have once come into our alliance have never
 revolted afterwards, but many of them, and those the most illustrious of them, have
 remained firm to our friendship for ever.

Therefore our ancestors made their first strides to dominion over Africa from this province. Nor would the mighty
 power of Carthage so soon have fallen,
 if Sicily had not been open to us, both as
 a granary to supply us with corn, and as a harbour for our fleets. Wherefore, Publius Africanus, when he had
 destroyed Carthage , adorned the cities
 of the Sicilians with most beautiful statues and monuments, in order to place the
 greatest number of monuments of his victory among those whom he thought were
 especially delighted at the victory of the Roman people.

Afterwards that illustrious man, Marcus Marcellus himself, whose valour in
 Sicily was felt by his enemies, his mercy
 by the conquered, and his good faith by all the Sicilians, not only provided in that
 war for the advantage of his allies, but spared even his conquered enemies. When by
 valour and skill he had taken Syracuse , that most beautiful city, which was not only strongly
 fortified by art, but was protected also by its natural advantages—by the character
 of the ground about it, and by the sea—he not only allowed it to remain without any
 diminution of its strength, but he left it so highly adorned, as to be at the same
 time a monument of his victory, of his clemency, and of his moderation; when men saw
 both what he had subdued, and whom he had spared, and what he had left behind him.
 He thought that Sicily was entitled to have
 so much honour paid to her, that he did not think that he ought to destroy even an
 enemy's city in an island of such allies.

And therefore we have always so esteemed the island of Sicily for every purpose, as to think that whatever
 she could produce was not so much raised among the Sicilians as stored up in our own
 homes. When did she not deliver the corn which she was bound to deliver, by the
 proper day? When did she fail to promise us, of her own accord, whatever she thought
 we stood in need of? When did she ever refuse anything which was exacted of her?
 Therefore that illustrious Marcus Cato the wise called Sicily a storehouse of provisions for our republic—the nurse of the
 Roman people. But we experienced, in that long and difficult Italian war which we
 encountered, that Sicily was not only a
 storehouse of provisions to us, but was also an old and well-filled treasury left us
 by our ancestors; for, supplying us with hides, with tunics, and with corn, it
 clothed, armed, and fed our most numerous armies, without any expense at all to
 us.

What more need I say? How great are these services, O judges, which perhaps we are
 hardly aware we are receiving,—that we have many wealthy citizens, that they have a
 province with which they are connected, faithful and productive to which they may
 easily make excursions, where they may be welcome to engage in traffic; citizens,
 some of whom she dismisses with gain and profit by supplying them with merchandise,
 some she retains, as they take a fancy to turn farmers, or graziers, or traders in
 her land, or even to pitch in it their habitations and their homes. And this is no
 trifling advantage to the Roman people, that so vast a number of Roman citizens
 should be detained so near home by such a respectable and profitable business.

And since our tributary nations and our provinces are, as it were, farms belonging
 to the Roman people; just as one is most pleased with those farms which are nearest
 to one, so too the suburban character of this province is very acceptable to the
 Roman people. And as to the inhabitants themselves, O judges, such is their patience
 their virtue, and their frugality, that they appear to come very nearly up to the
 old-fashioned manners of our country, and not to those which now prevail. There is
 nothing then like the rest of the Greeks; no sloth, no luxury; on the contrary there
 is the greatest diligence in all public and private affairs, the greatest economy,
 and the greatest vigilance. Moreover, they are so fond of our nation that they are
 the only people where neither a publican nor a money-changer is unpopular.

And they have born the injuries of many of our magistrates with such a
 disposition, that they have never till this time fled by any public resolution to
 the altar of our laws and to your protection; although they endured the misery of
 that year which so prostrated them that they could not have been preserved through
 it, if Caius Marcellus had not come among them, by some special providence, as it
 were, in order that the safety of Sicily 
 might be twice secured by the same family. Afterwards, too, they experienced that
 terrible government of Marcus Antonius. For they had had these principles handed
 down to them from their ancestors, that the kindnesses of the Roman people to the
 Sicilians had been so great, that they ought to think even the injustice of some of
 our men endurable.

The states have never before this man's time given any public evidence against any
 one. And they would have borne even this man himself, if he had sinned against them
 like a man, in any ordinary manner; or in short, in any one single kind of tyranny.
 But as they were unable to endure luxury, cruelty, avarice, and pride, when they had
 lost by the wickedness and lust of one man all their own advantages, all their own
 rights, and all fruits of the kindness of the senate and the Roman people, they
 determined either to avenge themselves for the injuries they had suffered from that
 man by your instrumentality or if they seemed to you unworthy of receiving aid and
 assistance at your hands, then to leave their cities and their homes, since they had
 already left their fields, having been driven out of them by his injuries.

With this design all the deputations begged of Lucius Metellus that he would come
 as his successor as early as possible; with these feelings, they so often bewailed
 their miseries to their patrons; agitated by this indignation, they addressed the
 consuls with demands, which seemed to be not demands, but charges against that
 tyrant. They contrived also, by their indignation and their tears, to draw me, whose
 good faith and moderation they had experienced, almost from the employment of my
 life, in order to become his accuser; an action with which both the settled plan of
 my life and my inclination are utterly inconsistent (although in this business I
 appear to have undertaken a cause which has more parts of defence than of accusation
 in it).

Lastly, the most noble men and the chief men of the whole province have come
 forward both publicly and privately; every city of the greatest authority—every city
 of the highest reputation—have come forward with the greatest earnestness to
 prosecute its oppressor for its injuries. But how, O judges,
 have they come? It seems to me that I ought to speak before you now on behalf of the
 Sicilians with more freedom than perhaps they themselves wish. For I shall consult
 their safety rather than their inclination. Do you think that there was ever any
 criminal in any province defended in his absence against the inquiry into his
 conduct urged by his accuser, with such influence, and with such zeal? The quaestors
 of both provinces, who were so while he was praetor, stood
 close to me with their forces.

Those also who succeeded them, very zealous for his interests, liberally fed from
 his stores, were no less vehement against me. See how great was his influence who
 had four quaestors in one province, most zealous defenders and bulwarks of his
 cause; and the praetor and all his train so zealous in his interest, that it was
 quite plain, that it was not Sicily , which
 they had come upon when stripped bare, so much as Verres himself, who had left it
 loaded, which they looked upon as their province. They began to threaten the
 Sicilians, if they decreed any deputations to make statements against him; to
 threaten any one who had gone on any such deputation, to make most liberal promises
 to others, if they spoke well of him; to detain by force and under guard the most
 damaging witnesses of his private transactions, whom we had summoned by word of
 mouth to give evidence.

And though all this was done, yet know ye, that there was but one single city,
 that, namely, of the Mamertines, which by public resolution sent ambassadors to
 speak in his favour. But you heard the chief man of that embassy, the most noble man
 of that state, Caius Eleius, speak on his oath, and say, that Verres had had a
 transport of the largest size built at Messana , the work being contracted for at the expense of the city.
 And that same ambassador of the Mamertines, his panegyrist, said that he had not
 only robbed him of his private property, but had also carried away his sacred
 vessels, and the images of the Di Penates, which he had received from his ancestors,
 out of his house. A noble panegyric; when the one business of the ambassadors is
 discharged by two operations, praising the man and demanding back what has been
 stolen by him. And on what account that very city is friendly to him, shall be told
 in its proper place. For you will find that those very things which are the causes
 of the Mamertines bearing him good-will, are themselves sufficiently just causes for
 his condemnation. No other city, O judges, praises him by public resolution.

The power of supreme authority has had so much influence with a very few men, not
 in the cities, that either some most insignificant people of the most miserable and
 deserted towns were found who would go to Rome without the command of their people or their senate, or on the
 other hand, those who had been voted as ambassadors against him, and who had
 received the public evidence to deliver, and the public commission, were detained by
 force or by fear. And I am not vexed at this having happened in a few instances, in
 order that the rest of the cities, so numerous, so powerful, and so wise,—that all
 Sicily , in short, should have all the
 more influence with you when you see that they could be restrained by no force,
 could be hindered by no danger, from making experiment whether the complaints of
 your oldest and most faithful allies had any weight with you.

For as to what some of you may, perhaps, have heard, that he had a public encomium
 passed upon him by the Syracusans, although in the former pleading you learnt from
 the evidence of Heraclius the Syracusan what sort of encomium it was, still it shall
 be proved to you in another place how the whole matter really stands as far as that
 city is concerned For you shall see clearly that no man has ever been so hated by
 any people as that man both is and has been by the Syracusans. But perhaps it is only the native
 Sicilians who are persecuting him: the Roman citizens who are trading in Sicily defend him, love him, desire his safety.
 First of all, if that were the case, still in this trial for extortion, which has
 been established for the sake of the allies, according to that law and forms of
 proceeding which the allies are entitled to, you ought to listen to the complaints
 of the allies.

But you were able to see clearly in the former pleading, that many Roman citizens
 from Sicily , most honourable men, gave
 evidence about most important transactions, both as to injuries which they had
 received themselves, and injuries which they knew had been inflicted on others. I, O
 judges, affirm in this way what I know. I seem to myself to have done an action
 acceptable to the Sicilians in seeking to avenge their injuries with my own labour,
 at my own peril, and at the risk of incurring enmity in some quarters; and I am sure
 that this which I am doing is not less acceptable to our own citizens, who think
 that the safety of their rights, of their liberty, of their properties and fortunes,
 consists in tho condemnation of that man.

On which account, while speaking of his Sicilian praetorship, I will not object to
 your listening to me on this condition, that if he has been approved of by any
 description of men whatever; whether of Sicilians or of our own citizens; if he has
 been approved of by any class of men, whether agriculturists, or graziers, or
 merchants; if he has not been the common enemy and plunderer of all these men,—if,
 in short, he has ever spared any man in any thing, then you, too, shall spare him.
 Now, as soon as Sicily fell to him by lot as his province, immediately at Rome , while he was yet in the city, before he
 departed, he began to consider within himself and to deliberate with his friends, by
 what means he might make the greatest sum of money in that province in one year. He
 did not like to learn while he was acting, (though he was not entirely ignorant and
 inexperienced in the oppression of a province,) but he wished to arrive in
 Sicily with all his plans for plunder
 carefully thought of and prepared.

Oh how correct was the augury diffused by common report and common conversation
 among the people in that province! when from his very name men augured in a jesting
 way what he would do in the province. Indeed, who could doubt, when they recollected
 his flight and robbery in his quaestorship—when they considered his spoliation of
 temples and shrines in his lieutenancy—when they saw in the forum the plunder of his
 praetorship—what sort of man he was likely to prove in the fourth act of his
 villainy? And that you may
 be aware that he inquired at Rome not only
 into the different kinds of robbery which he might be able to execute, but into the
 very names of his victims, listen to this most certain proof, by which you will be
 able more easily to form an opinion of his unexampled impudence.

The very day on which he reached Sicily ,
 (see now whether he was not come, according to that omen bruited about the city,)
 prepared to sweep the province pretty clean, he immediately sends letters from
 Messana to Halesa, which I suppose he had
 written in Italy . For, as soon as he
 disembarked from the ship, he gave orders that Dio of Halesa should come to him
 instantly; saying that he wished to make inquiry about an inheritance which had come
 to his son from a relation, Apollodorus Laphiro.

It was, O judges, a very large sum of money. This Dio, O judges, is now, by the
 kindness of Quintus Metellus, become a Roman citizen; and in his case it was proved
 to your satisfaction at the former pleading, by the evidence of many men of the
 highest consideration, and by the account-books of many men, that a million of
 sesterces had been paid in order that, after
 Verres had inquired into the cause, in which there could no possible doubt exist, he
 might have a decision in his favour;—that, besides that all herds of the
 highest-bred mares were driven away, that all the plate and embroidered robes which
 he had in his home were carried off; so that Quintus Dio lost eleven hundred
 thousand sesterces because an inheritance had come
 to him, and for no other reason.

What are we to say? Who was praetor when this inheritance came to the son of Dio?
 The same man who was so when hers came to Annia the daughter of Publius Annius the
 senator,—the same who was so when his was left to Marcus Ligur the senator, namely
 Caius Sacerdos. What are we to say? Had no one been troublesome to Dio on the
 subject at the time?, No more than they had to Ligur, while Sacerdos was praetor.
 What then? :Did any one make any complaint to Verres? Nobody, unless perhaps you
 suppose that the informers were ready for him at the strait. When he was still at Rome , he heard that a very great inheritance had
 come to a certain Sicilian named Dio; that the heir had been enjoined by the terms
 of the will to erect statues in the forum; that, unless he erected them, he was to
 be liable to forfeiture to Venus Erycina. Although they had been erected in
 compliance with the will, still he; Verres, thought, since the name of Venus was
 mentioned, that he could find some pretext for making money of it.

Therefore he sets up a man to claim that inheritance for Venus Erycina. For it was
 not (as would have been usual) the quaestor in whose province Mount Eryx was, who
 made the demand. A fellow of the name of Naevius Turpo is the claimant, a spy and
 emissary of Verres, the most infamous of all that band of informers of his, who had
 been condemned in the praetorship of Caius Sacerdos for many wickednesses. For the
 cause was such that the very praetor himself when he was seeking for an accuser,
 could not find one a little more respectable than this fellow. Verres acquits his
 man of any forfeiture to Venus, but condemns him to pay forfeit to himself. He
 preferred, forsooth, to have men do wrong rather than gods;—he preferred himself to
 extort from Dio what was contrary to law, rather than to let Venus take anything
 that was not due to her.

Why need I now in this place recite the evidence of Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, who
 pleaded Dio's cause? who was concerned in the whole business? A most honourable man,
 and, although he has long ago been made a Roman citizen in reward for his virtues,
 still the very chief man and the most noble of all the Sicilians. Why need I recite
 the evidence of Quintus Caecilius Dio himself, a most admirable and moderate man?
 Why need I recite that of Lucius Vetecilius Ligur, of Titus Manlius, of Lucius
 Calenus? by the evidence of all of whom this case about Dio's money was fully
 established. Marcus Lucullus said the same thing that he had long ago known all the
 facts of the tyranny practised on Dio, through the connection of hospitality which
 existed between them.

What? Did Lucullus, who was at that time in Macedonia , know all these things better than you, O Hortensius, who
 were at Rome ? you to whom Dio fled for
 aid? you who expostulated with Verres by letter in very severe terms about the
 injuries done to Dio? Is an this new to you now, and unexpected? is this the first
 time your ears have heard of this crime?, Did you hear nothing of it from Dio,
 nothing from your own mother-in-law, that most admirable woman, Servilia, an ancient
 friend and connection of Dio's? Are not my witnesses ignorant of many circumstances
 which you are acquainted with? Is it not owing, not to the innocence of your client,
 but to the exception made by the law,
 that I am prevented from summoning you as a witness on my side on this charge? [The
 evidence of Marcus Lucullus, of Chlorus, of Dio is read.] Does not this Venereal man, who went
 forth from the bosom of Chelidon to his province, appear to you to have got a
 sufficiently large sum by means of the name of Verres?

Listen now to a no less shamelessly false accusation in a case where a smaller sum
 was involved. Sosippus and Epicrates were brothers of the town of Agyrium ; their father died twenty-two years ago, by
 whose will, if anything were done wrongly in any point, there was to be a forfeiture
 of his property to Venus. In the twentieth year after his death, though there had
 been in the interim so many praetors, so many quaestors, and so many false accusers
 in the province, the inheritance was claimed from the brothers in the name of Venus.
 Verres takes cognisance of the cause; by the agency of Volcatius he receives money
 from the two brothers, about four hundred thousand sesterces . You have heard the evidence of many people already; the
 brothers of Agyrium gained their cause, but
 on such terms that they left the court stripped and beggared.

Oh, but that money never came to Verres. What does that defence mean? is that
 asserted in this case, or only put out as a feeler? For to me it is quite a new
 light. Verres set up the accusers; Verres summoned the brother to appear before him;
 Verres heard the cause; Verres gave sentence. A vast sum was paid; they who paid it
 gained the cause; and you argue in defence “that money was not paid to Verres.” I
 can help you; my witnesses too say the same thing; they say they paid it to
 Volcatius. How did Volcatius acquire so much power as to get four hundred thousand
 sesterces from two men? Would any one have given
 Volcatius, if he had come on his own account, one half-farthing? Let him come now,
 let him try; no one will receive him in his house. But I say more; I accuse you of
 having received forty millions of sesterces 
 contrary to law; and I deny that you have ever accounted for one farthing of that
 money; but when money was paid for your decrees, for your orders, for your
 decisions, the point to be inquired into was not into whose hand it was paid, but by
 whose oppression it was extorted.

Those chosen companions of yours were your hands; the prefects, the secretaries,
 the surgeons, the attendants the soothsayers, the criers, were your hands. The more
 each individual was connected with you by any relationship, or affinity, or
 intimacy, the more he was considered one of your bands. The whole of that retinue of
 yours, which caused more evil to Sicily 
 than a hundred troops of fugitive slaves would have caused, was beyond all question
 your hand. Whatever was taken by any one of these men, that must be considered not
 only as having been given to you, but as having been paid into your own hand. For if
 you, O judges, admit this defence, “He did not receive it himself,” you will put an
 end to all judicial proceedings for extortion. For no criminal will be brought
 before you so guilty as not to be able to avail himself of that plea? Indeed, since
 Verres uses it, what criminal will ever henceforward be found so abandoned as not to
 be thought equal to Quintus Lucius in innocence by comparison with that man? And
 even now those who say this do not appear to me to be defending Verres so much as
 trying, in the instance of Verres, what license of defence will be admitted in other
 cases.

And with reference to this matter, you, O judges, ought to take great care what
 you do. It concerns the chief interests of the republic, and the reputation of our
 order, and the safety of the allies. For if we wish to be thought innocent, we must
 not only show that we ourselves are moderate, but that our companions are so too.
 First of all, we must
 take care to take those men with us who with regard our credit and our safety.
 Secondly, if in the selection of men our hopes have deceived us through friendship
 for the persons, we must take care to punish them, to dismiss them. We must always
 live as if we expected to have to give an account of what we have been doing. This
 is what was said by Africanus, a most kind-hearted man, (but that kind-heartedness
 alone is really admirable which is exercised without any risk to a man's reputation,
 as it was by him,)

when an old follower of his, who reckoned himself one of his friends, could not
 prevail on him to take him with him into Africa as his prefect, and was much annoyed at it. “Do not marvel,”
 said he, “that you do not obtain this from me, for I have been a long time begging a
 man to whom I believe my reputation to be dear, to go with me as my prefect, and as
 yet I cannot prevail upon him.” And in truth there is much more reason to beg men to
 go with us as our officers into a province, if we wish to preserve our safety and
 our honour, than to give men office as a favour to them; but as for you, when you
 were inviting your friends into the province, as to a place for plunder, and were
 robbing in company with them, and by means of them, and were presenting them in the
 public assembly with golden rings, did it never occur to you that you should have to
 give an account, not only of yourself, but of their actions also?

When he had acquired for himself these great and abundant gains from these causes
 which he had determined to examine into himself with his council—that is, with this
 retinue of his—then he invented an infinite number of expedients for getting bold of
 a countless amount of money. No one doubts that all the wealth of every man is placed in the
 power of those men who allow trials to proceed, and of those who sit as judges at the
 trials, no one doubts that none of us can retain possession of his house, of his
 farm, or of his paternal property, if, when these are claimed by any one of you, a
 rascally praetor, whose judgments no one has the power of arresting, can assign any
 judge whom he chooses, and if the worthless and corrupt judge gives any sentence
 which the praetor bids him give.

But if this also be added, that the praetor assigns the trial to take place
 according to such a formula, that even Lucius Octavius Balbus, if he were judge, (a
 man of the greatest experience in all that belongs to the law and to the duties of a
 judge,) could not decide otherwise: suppose it ran in this way:—“Let Lucius Octavius
 be the judge; if it appears that the farm at Capena , which is in dispute, belongs, according to the law of the
 Roman people, to Publius Servilius, that farm must be restored to Quintus Catulus,”
 will not Lucius Octavius be bound, as judge, to compel Publius Servilius to restore
 the farm to Quintus Catulus, or to condemn him whom he ought not to condemn? The
 whole praetorian law was like that; the whole course of judicial proceedings in
 Sicily was like that for three years,
 while Verres was praetor. His decrees were like this:—“If he does not accept what
 you say that you owe, accuse him; if he claims anything, take him to prison.”
 He ordered Caius Fuficius, who claimed something, to be
 taken to prison; so he did Lucius Suetius and Lucius Rucilius. His tribunals he
 formed in this way:—those who were Roman citizens were to be judges, when Sicilians
 ought to have been, according to their laws, those who were Sicilians were to be
 judges, when Romans should have been.

But that you may understand his whole system of judicial proceedings, listen first
 to the laws of the Sicilians in such uses, and then to the practices this man
 established. The
 Sicilians have this law,—that if a citizen of any town has a dispute with a
 fellow-citizen, he is to decide it in his own town, according to the laws there
 existing; if a Sicilian has a dispute with a Sicilian of a different city, in that
 case the praetor is to assign judges of that dispute, according to the law of
 Publius Rupilius, which be enacted by the advice of ten commissioners appointed to
 consider the subject, and which the Sicilians call the Rupilian law. If an
 individual makes a claim in a community, or a community on an individual, the senate
 of some third city is assigned to furnish the judges, as the citizens of the cities
 interested in the litigation are rejected as judges in such a case. If a Roman
 citizen makes a claim on a Sicilian, a Sicilian judge is assigned; if a Sicilian
 makes a claim on a Roman citizen, a Roman citizen is assigned as judge: in all other
 matters judges are appointed selected from the body of Roman citizens dwelling in
 the place. In law-suits between the farmers and the tax collectors, trials are
 regulated by the law about corn, which they call Lex
 Hieronica .

All these rights were not only thrown into disorder while that man was praetor,
 but indeed were openly taken away from both the Sicilians and from the Roman
 citizens. First of all, their own laws with reference to one another were
 disregarded. If a citizen had a dispute with another citizen, he either assigned any
 one as judge whom it was convenient to himself to assign, crier, soothsayer, or his
 own physician; or if a tribunal was established by the laws, and the parties had
 come before one of their fellow-citizens as the judge, that citizen was not allowed
 to decide without control. For, listen to the edict issued by this man, by which
 edict he brought every tribunal under his own authority: “If any one had given a
 wrong decision, he would examine into the matter himself; when he had examined, he
 would punish.” And when he did that, no one doubted that when the judge thought that
 some one else was doing to sit in judgment on his decision, and that he should be at
 the risk of his life in the matter, he would consider the inclination of the man who
 he expected would presently be judging in a matter affecting his down existence as a
 citizen.

Judges selected from the Roman settlers there were none; none even of the traders
 in the cities were proposed as judges. The crowd of judges which I am speaking of
 was the retinue, not of Quintus Scaevola, (who, however, did not make practice of
 appointing judges from among his own followers,) but of Caius Verres. And what sort
 of a retinue do you suppose it was when such a man as he was its chief? You see
 announced in the edict, “If the senate gives an erroneous decision....” I will prove
 that, if at any time a bench of judges was taken from the senate, that also gave its
 decisions, through compulsion, on his part, contrary to their own opinions. There
 never was any selection of the judges by lot, according to the Rupilian law, except
 when he had no interest whatever in the case. The tribunals established in the case
 of many disputes by the Lex Hieronica were all
 abolished by a single edict; no judges were appointed selected from the settlers or
 from the traders. What great power he had you see; now learn how he exercised it.

Heraclius is the son of Hiero, a Syracusan; a man among the very first for
 nobility of family, and, before Verres came as praetor, one of the most wealthy of
 the Syracusans; now a very poor man, owing to no other calamity but the avarice and
 injustice of that man. An inheritance of at least three millions of sesterces came to him by the will of his relation
 Heraclius; the house was full of silver plate exquisitely carved, of abundance of
 embroidered robes, and of most valuable slaves; things in which who is ignorant of
 the insane cupidity of that man? The fact was a subject of common conversation, that
 a great fortune had come to Heraclius that Heraclius would not only be rich, but
 that he would be amply supplied with furniture, plate, robes and slaves.

Verres, too, hears this; and at first he tries by the tricks and maneuvers which he
 is so fond of, to get him to lend things to him to look at, which he means never to
 return. Afterwards he takes counsel from some Syracusans; and they were relations of
 his, whose wives too were not believed to be entirely strangers to him, by name
 Cleomenes and Aeschrio. What influence they had with him, and on what disgraceful
 reasons it was founded, you may understand from the rest of the accusation. These
 men, as I say, give Verres advice. They tell him that the property is a fine one,
 which in every sort of wealth; and that Heraclius himself is a man advancing in
 years, and not very active; and that he has no patron on whom he has any claim, or
 to whom he has any access except the Marcelli; that a condition was contained in the
 will in which he was mentioned as heir, that he was to erect some statues in the
 palaestra. We will contrive to produce people from the palaestra to assert that they
 have not been erected according to the terms of the will, and to claim the
 inheritance, because they say that it is forfeited to the palaestra. The idea
 pleased Verres.

For he foresaw that, when such an inheritance became disputed, and was claimed by
 process of law, it was quite impossible for him not to get some plunder out of it
 before it was done with. He approves of the plan; he advises them to begin to act as
 speedily as possible, and to attack a man of that age, and disinclined to law-suits,
 with as much bluster as possible. An action is brought in due form against Heraclius. At first all
 marvel at the roguery of the accusation. After a little, of those who knew Verres,
 some suspected, and some clearly saw that he had cast his eyes on the inheritance.
 In the mean time the day had arrived, on which he had announced in his edict that,
 according to established usage, and to the Rupilian law, he would assign judges at
 Syracuse . He had come prepared to
 assign judges in this cause. Then Heraclius points out to him that he cannot assign
 judges in his cause that day, because the Rupilian law said that they were not to be
 assigned till thirty days after the action was commenced. The thirty days had not
 yet elapsed; Heraclius hoped that, if he could avoid having them appointed that day,
 Quintus Arrius, whom the province was eagerly expecting, would arrive as successor
 to Verres before another appointment could take place.

He postponed appointing judges in all suits, and fixed the first day for
 appointing them that he legally could after the thirty days claimed by Heraclius in
 his action had elapsed. When the day arrived, he began to pretend that he was
 desirous to appoint the judges. Heraclius comes with his advocates, and claims to be
 allowed to have the cause between him and the men of the palaestra, that is to say,
 with the Syracusan people, tried by strict law. His adversaries demand that judges
 be appointed to decide on that matter of those cities which were in the habit of
 frequenting the Syracusan courts. Judges were appointed, whomsoever Verres chose.
 Heraclius demanded, on the other hand, that judges should be appointed according to
 the provisions of the Rupilian law; and that no departure should be made from the
 established usage of their ancestors, from the authority of the senate, and from the
 rights of all the Sicilians.

Why need I demonstrate the licentious wickedness of that Verres, in the
 administration of justice? Who of you is not aware of it, from his administration in
 this city? Who ever, while he was praetor, could obtain anything by law against the
 will of Chelidon? The province did not corrupt that man, as it has corrupted some;
 he was the same man that he had been at Rome . When Heraclius said, what all men well knew, that there was an
 established form of law among the Sicilians by which causes between them were to be
 tried; that there was the Rupilian law, which Publius Rupilius, the consul, had
 enacted, with the advice of ten chosen commissioners; that every praetor and consul
 in Sicily had always observed this law. He
 said that he should not appoint judges according to the provisions of the Rupilian
 law. He appointed five judges who were most agreeable to himself.

What can you do with such a man as this? What punishment can you find worthy of
 such licentiousness? Then it was prescribed to you by law, O most wicked and most
 shameless man, in what way you were to appoint judges among the Sicilians; when the
 authority of a general of the Roman people, when the dignity of ten commissioners,
 men of the highest rank, when a positive resolution of the senate was against you,
 in obedience to which resolution Publius Rupilius had established laws in Sicily by the advice of ten commissioners; when,
 before you came as praetor every one had most strictly observed the Rupilian laws in
 all points, and especially in judicial matters; did you dare to consider so many
 solemn circumstances as nothing in comparison with your own plunder? Did you
 acknowledge no law? Had you no scruple? no regard for your reputation? no fear of
 any judgment yourself? Has the authority of no one of any weight with you? Was there
 no example which you chose to follow?

But, I was going to say, when these five judges had been appointed, by no law,
 according to no use, with none of the proper ceremonies, with no drawing of lots,
 according to his mere will, not to examine into the cause, but to give whatever
 decision they were commanded, on that day nothing more was done; the parties are
 ordered to appear on the day following. In the meantime Heraclius, as he sees that it is all a plot laid by
 the praetor against his fortune, resolves, by the advice of his friends and
 relations, not to appear before the court. Accordingly he flies from Syracuse that night. Verres the next day, early
 in the morning,—for he had got up much earlier than he ever did before,—orders the
 judges to be summoned. When he finds that Heraclius does not appear, he begins to
 insist on their condemning Heraclius in his absence. They expostulate with him, and
 beg him, if he pleases, to adhere to the rule he had himself laid down, and not to
 compel them to decide against the absent party in favour of the party who was
 present, before the tenth hour. He agrees.

In the meantime both Verres himself began to be uneasy, and his friends and
 counselors began also to be a good deal vexed at Heraclius' having fled. They
 thought that the condemnation of an absent man, especially in a matter involving so
 large a sum of money, would be a far more odious measure than if he had appeared in
 court, and had there been condemned. To this consideration was added the fact, that
 because the judges had not been appointed in accordance with the provisions of the
 Rupilian law, they saw that the affair would appear much more base and more
 iniquitous. And so, while he endeavours to correct this error, his covetousness and
 dishonesty are made more evident. For he declares that he will not use those five
 judges; he orders (as ought to have been done at first, according to the Rupilian
 law) Heraclius to be summoned, and those who had brought the action against him; he
 says that he is going to appoint the judges by lot, according to the Rupilian law.
 That which Heraclius the day before could not obtain from him, though he begged and
 entreated it of him with many tears, occurred to him the next day of his own accord,
 and he recollected that he ought to appoint judges according to the Rupilian law. He
 draws the names of three out of the urn: he commands them to condemn Heraclius in
 his absence. So they condemn him.

What was the meaning of that madness? Did you think that you would never have to
 give an account of your actions? Did you think that such men as these would never
 hear of these transactions? Is such an inheritance to be claimed without the
 slightest grounds for such a claim, in order to become the plunder of the praetor?
 is the name of the city to be introduced? is the base character of a false accuser
 to be fixed upon an honourable state? And not this only, but is the whole business
 to be conducted in such a matter that there is to be not even the least appearance
 of justice kept up? For, in the name of the immortal gods, what difference does it
 make whether the praetor commands and by force compels any one to abandon all his
 property, or passed a sentence by which, without any trial, he must lose all his
 fortune?

In truth you cannot deny that you ought to have appointed judges according to the
 provisions of the Rupilian law, especially when Heraclius demanded it. If you say
 that you departed from the law with the consent of Heraclius, you will entangle
 yourself, you will be hampered by the statement you make in your own defence. For if
 that was the case, why, in the first place, did he refuse to appear, when he might
 have had the judges chosen from the proper body which he demanded? Secondly, why,
 after his flight, did you appoint other judges by drawing lots, if you had appointed
 those who had been before appointed, with the consent of each party? Thirdly, Marcus
 Postumius, the quaestor, appointed as the other judges in the market-place; you
 appointed the judges in this case alone.

However, by these means, some one will say, he gave that inheritance to the
 Syracusan people. In the first place, even if I were disposed to grant that, still
 you must condemn him; for it is not permitted to us with impunity to rob one man for
 the purpose of giving to another. But you will find that he despoiled that
 inheritance himself without making much secret of his proceedings; that the
 Syracusan people, indeed, had a great deal of the odium, a great deal of the infamy,
 but that another had the profit; that a few Syracusans, those who now say that they
 have come in obedience to the public command of their city, to bear testimony in his
 favour, were then sharers in the plunder, and are come hither now, not for the
 purpose of speaking in his favour, but to assist in the valuation of the damages
 which they claim from him. After he was condemned in his absence, possession is
 given to the palaestra of the Syracusans,—that is, to the Syracusan people,—not only
 of that inheritance which was in question, and which was of the value of three
 millions of sesterces , but also of all Heraclius's
 own paternal property, which was of equal amount.

What sort of a partnership in that of yours? You take away a man's inheritance,
 which had come to him from a relation, had come by will, had come in accordance with
 the laws; all which property, he, who made the will, had made over to this Heraclius
 to have and to use as he would, some time before he died,—of which inheritance, as
 he had died some time before you became praetor, there had been no dispute, nor had
 any one made any mention of it. However, be it so; take away inheritances from relations, give them
 to people at the palaestra; plunder other people's property in the name of the
 state; overturn laws, wills, the wishes of the dead, the rights of the living: had
 you any right to deprive Heraclius of his paternal property also? And yet as soon as
 he fled, how shamelessly, how undisguisedly, how cruelly, O ye immortal gods, was
 his property seized! How disastrous did that business seem to Heraclius, how
 profitable to Verres, how disgraceful to the Syracusans, how miserable to everybody!
 For the first measures which are taken are to carry whatever chased plate there was
 among that property to Verres: as for all Corinthian vessels, all embroidered robes,
 no one doubted that they would be taken and seized, and carried inevitably to his
 house, not only out of that house, but out of every house in the whole province. He
 took away whatever slaves he pleased, others he distributed to his friends: an
 auction was held, in which his invincible train was supreme everywhere.

But this is remarkable. The Syracusans who presided over what was called the
 collection of this property of Heraclius, but what was in reality the division of
 it, gave in to the senate their accounts of the whole business; they said that many
 pairs of goblets many silver water-ewers, much valuable embroidered cloth, and many
 valuable slaves, had been presented to Verres; they stated how much money had been
 given to each person by his order. The Syracusans groaned, but still they bore it.
 Suddenly this item is read,—that two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces were given to one person by command of the
 praetor. A great outcry arises from every one, not only from every virtuous man, nor
 from those to whom it had always seemed scandalous that the goods of a private
 individual should be taken from him, by the greatest injustice, under the name of
 being claimed by the people, but even the very chief instigators of the wrong; and
 in some degree the partner in the rapine and plunder, began to cry out that the man
 ought to have his inheritance for himself. So great an uproar arise in the
 senate-house, that the people ran to see what had happened.

The matter being known to the whole assembly, is soon reported at Verres's house.
 The man was in a rage with those who had read out the accounts,—an enemy to all who
 had raised the outcry; he was in fury with rage and passion. But he was at that
 moment unlike himself. You know the appearance of the man, you know his audacity;
 yet at that moment he was much disquieted by the reports circulated among the
 people, by their outcry, and by the impossibility of concealing the robbery of so
 large a sum of money. When he came to himself, he summoned the Syracusans to him,
 because he could not deny that money had been given him by them; he did not go to a
 distance to look for some one, (in which case he would not have been able to prove
 it,) but he took one of his nearest relations, a sort of second son, and accused him of
 having stolen the money. He declared that he would make him refund it; and he, after
 he heard that, had a proper regard for his dignity, for his age, and for his noble
 birth. He addressed the senate on the subject; he declared to them that he had
 nothing to do with the business Of Verres he said what all saw to be true, and he
 said it plainly enough. Therefore, the Syracusans afterwards erected him a statue;
 and he himself, as soon as he could, left Verres, and departed from the province.

And yet they say that this man complains sometimes of his misery in being weighed
 down, not by his own offences and crimes, but by those of his friends. You had the
 province for three years; your son-in-law elect, a young man, was with you one year.
 Your companions, gallant men, who were your lieutenants, left you the first year.
 One lieutenant, Publius Tadius, who remained, was not much with you; but if he had
 been always with you, he would with the greatest care have spared your reputation,
 and still more would he have spared his own. What presence have you for accusing
 others? What reason have you for thinking that you can, I will not say, shift the
 blame of your actions on another, but that you can divide it with another?

That two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces are
 refunded to the Syracusans, and how they afterwards returned to him by the backdoor,
 I will make evident to you, O judges, by documents and by witnesses. And akin to this iniquity and
 rascality of that fellow, by which plunder, consisting of a part of that property,
 came to many of the Syracusans against the will of the people and senate of
 Syracuse , are those crimes which
 were committed by the instrumentality of Theomnastus, and Aeschrio, and
 Dionysodorus, and Cleomenes, utterly against the wish of the city; first of all in
 plundering the whole city, of which matter I have arranged to speak in another part
 of my accusation, so that, by the assistance of those men whom I have named, he
 carried off all the statues, all the works in ivory out of the sacred temples, all
 the paintings from every place, and even whatever images of the gods he fancied;
 secondly, that in the senate-house of the Syracusans, which they call bouleuth/rion , a most honourable place, and of the
 highest reputation in the eyes of the citizens, where there is a brazen statue of
 Marcus Marcellus himself, (who preserved and restored that place to the Syracusans,
 though by the laws of war and victory he might have taken it away,) those men
 erected a gilt statue to him and another to his son; in order that, as long as the
 recollection of that man remained, the Syracusan senate might never be in the
 senate-house without lamentation and groaning.

By means of the same partners in his injuries, and thefts, and bribes, during his
 command the festival of Marcellus at Syracuse is abolished, to the great grief of the city;—a festival
 which they both gladly paid as due to the recent services done them by Caius
 Marcellus, and also most gladly gave to the family and name and race of the
 Marcelli. Mithridates in Asia , when he had
 occupied the whole of that province, did not abolish the festival of Mucius. An enemy, and he too an enemy in other respects, only too
 savage and barbarous, still would not violate the honour of a name which had been
 consecrated by holy ceremonies. You forbade the Syracusans to grant one day of
 festival to the Marcelli, to whom they owed the being able to celebrate other days
 of festival.

Oh, but you gave them a splendid day instead of it; you allowed them to celebrate a
 festival in honour of Verres, and issued contracts for providing all that would be
 necessary for sacrifices and banquets on that day for many years. But in such an
 enormous superfluity of impudence as that man's, it seems better to pass over some
 things, that we may not appear to strain every point,—that we may not appear to have
 no feelings but those of indignation. For time, voice, lungs, would fail me, if I
 wished now to cry out how miserable and scandalous it is, that there should be a
 festive day in his name among those people, who think themselves utterly ruined by
 that man's conduct. O splendid Verrine festival! whither have you gone that you have
 not brought the people cause to remember that day? In truth, what house, what city,
 what temple even have you ever approached without leaving it emptied and ruined. Let
 the festival, then, be fitly called Verrine, and appear to be established, not from recollection of your name, but
 of your covetousness and your natural disposition.

See, O judges, how easily injustice, and the habit of doing wrong creeps on; see
 how difficult it is to check. There is a town called Bidis, an insignificant one
 indeed, not far from Syracuse . By far
 the first man of that city is a man of the name of Epicrates. An inheritance of five
 hundred thousand sesterces had come to him from
 some woman who was a relation of his, and so near a relation, that even if she had
 died intestate, Epicrates must have been her heir according to the laws of Bidis.
 The transaction at Syracuse which I
 have just mentioned was fresh in men's memories,—the affair I mean of Heraclius the
 Syracusan, who would not have lost his property if an inheritance had not come to
 him. To this Epicrates too an inheritance had come, as I have said.

His enemies began to consider that he too might be easily turned out of his
 property by the same praetor as Heraclius had been stripped of his by; they plan the
 affair secretly; they suggest it to Verres by his emissaries. The cause is arranged,
 so that the people belonging to the palaestra at Bidis are to claim his inheritance
 from Epicrates, just as the men of the Syracusan palaestra had claimed his from
 Heraclius. You never saw a praetor so devoted to the interests of the palaestra. But
 he defended the men of the palaestra in such a way that he himself came off with his
 wheels all the better greased. In this instance Verres, as soon as he foresaw what
 would happen, ordered eighty thousand sesterces to
 be paid to one of his friends.

The matter could not be kept entirely secret. Epicrates is informed of it by one of
 those who were concerned in it. At first he began to disregard and despise it,
 because the claim made against him had actually nothing in it about which a doubt
 could be raised. Afterwards when he thought of Heraclius, and recollected the
 licentiousness of Verres, he thought it better to depart secretly from the province.
 He did so; he went to Rhegium . And when this was known, they
 began to fret who had paid the money. They thought that nothing could be done in the
 absence of Epicrates. For Heraclius indeed had been present when the judges were
 appointed; but in the case of this man, who had departed before any steps had been
 taken in the action, before indeed there had been any open mention made of the
 dispute, they thought that nothing could be done. The men go to Rhegium ; they go to Epicrates; they point out to
 him, what indeed he knew, that they had paid eighty thousand sesterces ; they beg him to make up to them the money they themselves
 were out of pocket; they tell him he may take any security from them that he likes,
 that none of them will go to law with Epicrates about that inheritance.

Epicrates reproaches the men at great length and with great severity, and
 dismisses them. They return from Rhegium to
 Syracuse ; they complain to many
 people, as men in such a case are apt to do, that they have paid eighty thousand
 sesterces for nothing. The affair got abroad; it
 began to be the topic of every one's conversation. Verres repeats his old Syracusan
 trick. He says he wants to examine into that affair of the eighty thousand sesterces . He summons many people before him. The men of
 Bidis say that they gave it to Volcatius; they do not add that they had done so by
 his command. He summons Volcatius; he orders the money to be refunded. Volcatius
 with great equanimity brings the money, like a man who was sure to lose nothing by
 it; he returns it to them in the sight of many people; the men of Bidis carry the
 money away.

Some one will say, “What fault then do you find with Verres in this, who not only
 is not a thief himself, but who did not even allow any one else to be one?” Listen a
 moment. Now you shall see that this money which was just now seen to leave his house
 by the main road returned back again by a by-path. What came next? Ought not the
 praetor, having inquired into the case with the bench of judges, when he had found
 out that a companion of his own, with the object of corruptly swaying the law, the
 sentence, and the bench, (a matter in which the reputation of the praetor and even
 his condition as a free citizen were at stake,) had received money, and that the men
 of Bidis had given it, doing injury to the fair fame and fortune of the
 praetor,—ought he not, I say, to have punished both him who had taken the money, and
 those who had given it? You who had determined to punish those who had given an
 erroneous decision, which is often done out of ignorance, do you permit men to
 escape with impunity who thought that money might be received or be paid for the
 purpose of influencing your decree, your judicial decision? And yet that same
 Volcatius remained with you, although he was a Roman knight, after he had such
 disgrace put upon him.

For what is more disgraceful for a well-born man—what more unworthy of a free man,
 than to be compelled by the magistrate before a numerous assembly to restore what
 has been stolen; and if he had been of the disposition of which not only a Roman
 knight, but every free man ought to be, he would not have been able after that to
 look you in the face. He would have been a foe, an enemy, after he had been
 subjected to such an insult; unless, indeed, it had been done through collusion with
 you, and he had been serving your reputation rather than his own. And how great a
 friend he not only was to you then as long as he was with you in the province, but
 how great a friend he is even now, when you have long since been deserted by all the
 rest, you know yourself, and we can conceive. But is this the only argument that
 nothing was done without his knowledge, that Volcatius was not offended with him?
 that he punished neither Volcatius nor the men of Bidis?

It is a great proof, but this is the greatest proof of all, that to those very men
 of Bidis, with whom he ought to have been angry, as being the men by whom he found
 out that his decree had been attempted to be influenced by bribes, because they
 could do nothing against Epicrates according to law, even if he were present,—to
 these very men, I say, he not only gave that inheritance which had come to
 Epicrates, but, as in the case of Heraclius of Syracuse , so too in this case, (which was even rather more atrocious
 than the other, because Epicrates had actually never had any action brought against
 him at all,) he gave them all his paternal property and fortune. For he showed that
 if any one made a demand of any thing from an absent person, he would hear the
 cause, though without any precedent for so doing. The men of Bidis appear—they claim
 the inheritance. The agents of Epicrates demand that he would either refer them to
 their own laws, or else appoint judges, in accordance with the provisions of the
 Rupilian law. The adversaries did not dare to say anything against this; no escape
 from it could be devised. They accuse the man of having fled for the purpose of
 cheating them. They demand to be allowed to take possession of his property.

Epicrates did not owe a farthing to any one. His friends said that, if any one
 claimed anything from him, they would stand the trial themselves, and that they
 would give security to satisfy the judgment. When the whole business was getting cool, by Verres's
 instigation they began to accuse Epicrates of having tampered with the public
 documents; a suspicion from which he was far removed. They demand a trial on that
 charge. His friends began to object that no new proceeding, that no trial affecting
 his rank and reputation, ought to be instituted while he was absent; and at the same
 time they did not cease to reiterate their demands that Verres should refer them to
 their own laws.

He, having now got ample room for false accusation, when he sees that there is any
 point on which his friends refused to appear for Epicrates in his absence, declares
 that he will appoint a trial on that charge before any other. When all saw plainly
 that not only that money which had (to make a presence) been sent from his house,
 had returned back to it, but that he had afterwards received much more money, the
 friends of Epicrates ceased to argue in his defence. Verres ordered the men of Bidis
 to take possession of all his property, and to keep it for themselves. Besides the
 five hundred thousand sesterces which the
 inheritance amounted to, his own previous fortune amounted to fifteen hundred
 thousand. Was the affair planned out in this way from the beginning? Was it
 completed in this way? Is it a very trifling sum of money? Is Verres such a man as
 to be likely to have done all this which I have related for nothing?

Now, O judges, hear a little about the misery of the
 Sicilians. Both Heraclius the Syracusan, and Epicrates of Bidis, being stripped of
 all their property, came to Rome . They
 lived at Rome nearly two years in mourning
 attire, with unshaven beard and hair. When Lucius Metellus went to the province,
 then they also go back with Metellus, bearing with them letters of high
 recommendation. As soon as Metellus came to Syracuse he rescinded both the sentences—the sentence in the case of
 Epicrates, and that against Heraclius. In the property of both of them there was
 nothing which could be restored, except what was not able to be moved from its
 place.

Metellus had acted admirably on his first arrival, in rescinding and making of no
 effect all the unjust acts of that man which he could rescind. He had ordered
 Heraclius to be restored to his property; he was not restored. Every Syracusan
 senator who was accused by Heraclius he ordered to be imprisoned. And on this ground
 many were imprisoned. Epicrates was restored at once. Other sentences which had been
 pronounced at Lilybaeum , at Agrigentum , and at Panormus , were reviewed and reformed. Metellus showed that he did not
 mean to attend to the returns which had been made while Verres was praetor. The
 tithes which he had sold in a manner contrary to the Lex Hieronica, he said that he
 would sell according to that law. All the actions of Metellus went to the same
 point, so that he seemed to be remodeling the whole of Verres's praetorship. As soon
 as I arrived in Sicily , he changed his
 conduct.

A man of the name of Letilius had come to him two days before, a man not unversed
 in literature, so he constantly used him as his secretary. He had brought him many
 letters, and, among them, one from home which had changed the whole man. On a sudden
 he began to say that he wished to do everything to please Verres; that he was
 connected with him by the ties of both friendship and relationship. All men wondered
 that this should now at last have occurred to him, after he had injured him by so
 many actions and so many decisions. Some thought that Letilius had come as an
 ambassador from Verres, to put him in mind of their mutual interests, their
 friendship, and their relationship. From that time he began to solicit the cities
 for testimony in favour of Verres, and not only to try to deter the witnesses
 against him by threats, but even to detain them by force. And if I had not by my
 arrival checked his endeavours in some degree, and striven among the Sicilians, by
 the help of Glabrio's letters and of the law, I should not have been able to bring
 so many witnesses into this court.

But, as I began to say, remark the miseries of the Sicilians. Heraclius, whom I
 have mentioned, and Epicrates came forward a great distance to meet me, with all
 their friends. When I came to Syracuse , they thanked me with tears; they wished to leave Syracuse , and go to Rome in my company: because I had many other towns
 left which I wanted to go to, I arranged with the men on what day they were to meet
 me at Messana . They sent a messenger to me
 there, that they were detained by the praetor. And though I summoned them formally
 to attend and give evidence,—though I gave in their names to Metellus,—though they
 were very eager to come, having been treated with the most enormous injustice, they
 have not arrived yet. These are the rights which the allies enjoy now, not to be
 allowed even to complain of their distresses.

You have already heard the evidence of Heraclius of
 Centuripa, a most virtuous and noble young man, from whom a hundred thousand
 sesterces were claimed by a fraudulent and false
 accusation. Verres, by means of penalties and securities exacted, contrived to extort three hundred thousand; and
 the sentence which had been given in favour of Heraclius, in the affairs about which
 security had been given) he set aside, because a citizen of Centuripa had acted as
 judge between two of his fellow-citizens, and he said that he had given a false
 decision; he forbade him to appear in the senate, and deprived him by an interdict
 of all the privileges of citizens and of access to all public places. If any one
 struck him, he announced that he would take no cognisance of the injury; that if any
 claim were made on him, he would appoint a judge from his own retinue, but that he
 would not allow him an action on any ground whatever.

And his authority in the province had just this weight, that no one did strike him,
 though the praetor in his province gave every one leave by word, and in reality
 incited them to do so; nor did any one claim anything of him, though he had given
 licence to false accusation by his authority; yet that heavy mark of ignominy was
 attached to the man as long as Verres remained in the province. After this fear had
 been impressed on the judges, in a manner unexampled and wholly without precedent,
 do you suppose that any matter was decided in Sicily except according to his will and pleasure? Does this appear to
 have been the only effect of it, (which effect, however, it had,) to take his money
 from Heraclius? or was not this also the object, as the means by which the greatest
 plunder was to be got,—to bring, under presence of judicial decision, the property
 and fortune of every one into the power of that one man?

But why should I seek out every separate transaction and cause in the trials which
 took place on capital charges? Out of many, which are all nearly alike, I will
 select those which seem to go beyond all the others in rascality. There was a man of
 Halicya, named Sopater, among the first men of his state for riches and high
 character. He, having been accused by his enemies before Caius Sacerdos the praetor,
 on a capital charge, was easily acquitted. The same enemies again accused this same
 Sopater on the same charge before Caius Verres when he had come as successor to
 Sacerdos. The matter appeared trifling to Sopater, both because he was innocent, and
 because he thought that Verres would never dare to overturn the decision of
 Sacerdos. The defendant is cited to appear. The cause is heard at Syracuse . Those changes are brought forward by
 the accusers which had been already previously extinguished, not only by the
 defence, but also by the decision.

Quintus Minucius, a Roman knight, among the first for a high and honourable
 reputation, and not unknown to you, O judges, defended the cause of Sopater. There
 was nothing in the cause which seemed possible to be feared, or even to be doubted
 about at all. In the meantime that same Timarchides, that fellow's attendant and
 freedman, who is, as you have learnt by many witnesses at the former hearing, his
 agent and manager in all affairs of this sort, comes to Sopater, and advised him not
 to trust too much to the decision of Sacerdos and the justice of his cause; he tells
 him that his accusers and enemies have thoughts of giving money to the praetor, but
 that the praetor would rather take it to acquit; and at the same time, that he had
 rather, if it were possible, not rescind a decision of his predecessor. Sopater, as
 this happened to him quite suddenly and unexpectedly, was greatly perplexed, and had
 no answer ready to make to Timarchides, except that he would consider what he had
 best do in such a case; and at the same time he told him that he was in great
 difficulties respecting money matters. Afterwards he consulted with his friends; and
 as they advised him to purchase an acquittal, he came to Timarchides. Having
 explained his difficulties to him, he brings the man down to eighty thousand
 sesterces , and pays him that money.

When the cause came to be heard, all who were defending Sopater were without any
 fear or any anxiety. No crime had been committed; the matter had been decided;
 Verres had received the money. Who could doubt how it would turn out? The matter is
 not summed up that day; the court breaks up; Timarchides comes a second time to
 Sopater. He says that his accusers were promising a much larger sum to the praetor
 than what he had given, and that if he were wise he would consider what he had best
 do. The man, though he was a Sicilian, and a defendant—that is to say, though he had
 little chance of obtaining justice—and was in an unfortunate position, still would
 not bear with or listen to Timarchides any longer. Do, said he, whatever you please;
 I will not give any more And this, too, was the advice of his friends and defenders;
 and so much the more, because Verres, however he might conduct himself on the trial,
 still had with him on the bench some honourable men of the Syracusan community, who
 had also been on the bench with Sacerdos when this same Sopater had been acquitted.
 They considered that it was absolutely impossible for the same men, who had formerly
 acquitted Sopater, to condemn him now on the same charge, supported by the same
 witnesses. And so with this one hope they came before the court.

And when they came thither, when the same men came in numbers on the bench who
 were used to sit there, and when the whole defence of Sopater rested on this hope,
 namely, on the number and dignity of the bench of judges, and on the fact of their
 being, as I have said before, the same men who had before acquitted Sopater of the
 same charge, mark the open rascality and audacity of the man, not attempted to be
 disguised, I will not say under any reason, but with even the least dissimulation.
 He orders Marcus Petilius, a Roman knight, whom he had with him on the bench, to
 attend to a private cause in which he was judge. Petilius refused, because Verres
 himself was detaining his friends whom he had wished to have with him on the bench.
 He, liberal man, said that he did not wish to detain any of the men who preferred
 being with Petilius. And so they all go; for the rest also prevail upon him not to
 detain them, saying that they wished to appear in favour of one or other of the
 parties who were concerned in that trial. And so he is left alone with his most
 worthless retinue.

Minucius, who was defending Sopater, did not doubt that Verres, since he had
 dismissed the whole bench, would not proceed with the investigation of his cause
 that day; when all of a sudden he is ordered to state his case. He answers, “To
 whom?” “To me,” says Verres, “if I appear to you of sufficient dignity to try the
 cause of a Sicilian, a Greek.” “Certainly,” says he, “you are of sufficient dignity,
 but I wish for the presence of those men who were present before, and were
 acquainted with the case.” “State your case,” says he; “they cannot be present.”
 “For in truth,” says Quintus Minucius, “Petilius begged me also to be with him on
 the bench;” and at the same time he began to leave his seat as counsel.

Verres, in a rage, attacks him with pretty violent language, and even began to
 threaten him severely, for bringing such a charge, and trying to excite such odium
 against him. Minucius,
 who lived as a merchant at Syracuse ,
 in such a way as always to bear in mind his rights and his dignity and who knew that
 it became him not to increase his property in the province at the expense of any
 portion of his liberty, gave the man such answer as seemed good to him, and as the
 occasion and the cause required. He said that he would not speak in defence of his
 client when the bench of judges was sent away and dismissed. And so he left the bar.
 And all the other friends and advocates of Sopater, except the Sicilians, did the
 same.

Verres, though he is a man of incredible effrontery and audacity, yet when he was
 thus suddenly left alone got frightened and agitated. He did not know what to do, or
 which way to turn. If he adjourned the investigation at that time, he knew that when
 those men were present, whom he had got rid of for the time, Sopater would be
 acquitted; but if he condemned an unfortunate and innocent man, (while he himself,
 the praetor, was without any colleagues, and the defendant without any counsel or
 patron,) and rescinded the decision of Caius Sacerdos, he thought that he should not
 be able to withstand the unpopularity of such an act. So he was quite in a fever
 with perplexity. He turned himself every way, not only as to his mind, but also as
 to his body; so that all who were present could plainly see that fear and
 covetousness were contending together in his heart. There was a great crowd of
 people present, there was profound silence, and eager expectation which way his
 covetousness was going to find vent. His attendant Timarchides was constantly
 stooping down to his ear.

Then at last he said, “Come, state your case.” Sopater began to implore him by the
 good faith of gods and man, to hear the cause in company with the rest of the bench.
 He orders the witnesses to be summoned instantly. One or two of them give their
 evidence briefly. No questions are asked. The crier proclaims that the case is
 closed. Verres, as if he were afraid that Petilius, having either finished or
 adjourned the private cause on which he was engaged, might return to the bench with
 the rest, jumps down in haste from his seat; he condemned an innocent man, one who
 had been acquitted by Caius Sacerdos, without hearing him in his defence, by the
 joint sentence of a secretary, a physician, and a soothsayer.

Keep, pray keep that man in the city, O judges. Spare him and preserve him, that
 you may have a man to assist you in judging causes; to declare his opinion in the
 senate on questions of war and peace, without any covetous desires. Although,
 indeed, we and the Roman people have less cause to be anxious as to what his opinion
 in the senate is likely to be: for what will be his authority? When will he have
 either the daring or the power to deliver his opinion? When will a man of such
 luxury and such indolence ever attempt to mount up to the senate-house except in the
 month of February? However, let him come; let him vote war against the
 Cretans, liberty to the Byzantines; let him call Ptolemy king; let him say and think
 everything which Hortensius wishes him. These things do not so immediately concern
 us—have not such immediate reference to the risk of our lives, or to the peril of
 our fortunes.

What really is of vital importance, what is formidable, what
 is to be dreaded by every virtuous man, is, that if through any influence this man
 escapes from this trial, he must be among the judges; he must give his decision on
 the lives of Roman citizens; he must be standard-bearer in the army of that man
 who wishes to possess
 undisputed sway over our courts of justice. This the Roman people refuses; this it
 will never endure; the whole people raises an outcry, and gives you leave, if you
 are delighted with these men, if you wish from such a set to add splendour to your
 order, and an ornament to the senate-house, to have that fellow among you as a
 senator, to have him even as a judge in your own cases, if you choose; but men who
 are not of your body, men to whom the admirable Cornelian laws do not give the power
 of objecting to more than three judges, do not choose that this man, so cruel, so
 wicked, so infamous should sit as judge in matters in which they are concerned.

In truth, if that is a wicked action, (which appears to me to be of all actions
 the most base, and the most wicked,) to take money to influence a decision in a
 court of law, to put up one's good faith and religion to auction; how much love
 wicked, flagitious, and scandalous is it, to condemn a man from whom you have taken
 money to acquit him?—so that the praetor does not even act up to the customs of
 robbers, for there is honour among thieves. It is a sin to take money from a
 defendant; how much more to take it from an accuser! how much more wicked still to
 take it from both parties! When you had put up your good faith to auction in the
 province, he had the most weight with you who gave you the most money.—That was
 natural: perhaps some time or other some one else may have done something of the
 same sort. But when you had already disposed of your good faith and of your scruples
 to the one party, and had received the money, and had afterwards sold the very same
 articles to his adversary for a still higher price, are you going to cheat both, and
 to decide as you please? and not even to give back the money to the party whom you
 have deceived?

What is the use of speaking to me of Bulbus, of Stalenus? What monster of this sort, what prodigy of wickedness have
 we ever heard of or seen, who would first sell his decision to the defendant, and
 afterwards decide in favour of the accuser? who would get rid of, and dismiss from
 the bench honourable men who were acquainted with the cause; would by himself alone
 condemn a defendant, who had been acquitted once from whom he had taken money, and
 would not restore: him his money?—Shall we have this man on the list of judges Shall
 he be named as judge in the second senatorial decury? Shall he be the Judge of the
 lives of free men? Shall a judicial tablet be entrusted to him, which he will mark
 not only with wax, but with blood too if it be made worth his while?

For what of all these things does he deny having done? That, perhaps, which he
 must deny or else be silent,—the having taken the money? Why should he not deny it?
 But the Roman knight who defended Sopater, who was present at all his deliberations
 and at every transaction, Quintus Minucius, says on his oath that the money was
 paid; he says on his oath that Timarchides said that a greater sum was being offered
 by the accusers. All the Sicilians will say the same; all the citizens of Halicya
 will say the same; even the young son of Sopater will say the same, who by that most
 cruel man has been deprived of his innocent father and of his father's property.

But if I cannot make the case plain, as far as the money is concerned, by
 evidence, can you deny this, or will you now deny, that after you had dismissed the
 rest of the judges, after those excellent men who had sat on the bench with Caius
 Sacerdos, and who were used to sit there with you, had been got rid of, you by
 yourself decided a matter which had been decided before?—that the man, whom Caius
 Sacerdos, assisted by a bench of colleagues, after an investigation of the case,
 acquitted, you, without any bench of colleagues, without investigating the case,
 condemned? When you have confessed this, which was done openly in the forum at
 Syracuse , before the eyes of the
 whole province; then deny, if you like, that you received money. You will be very
 likely to find a man, when he sees these things which were done openly, to ask what
 you did secretly; or to doubt whether he had better believe my witnesses or your
 defenders.

I have already said, O judges, that I shall not enumerate all that fellow's actions
 which are of this sort; but that I shall select those which are the most remarkable.
 
 Listen now to another remarkable exploit of his, one that
 has already been mentioned in many places, and one of such a sort that every
 possible crime seems to be comprehended in that one. Listen carefully, for you will
 find that this deed had its origin in covetousness, its growth in lust, its
 consummation and completeness in cruelty.

Sthenius, the man who is sitting by us, is a citizen of Thermae, long since known
 to many by his eminent virtue and his illustrious birth, and now known to all men by
 his own misfortune and the unexampled injuries he has received from that man. Verres
 having often enjoyed his hospitality, and having not only stayed often with him at
 Thermae, but having almost dwelt with him there, took away from him out of his house
 everything which could in any uncommon degree delight the mind or eyes of any one.
 In truth, Sthenius from his youth had collected such things as these with more than
 ordinary diligence; elegant furniture of brass, made at Delos and at Corinth , paintings, and even a good deal of elegantly wrought silver,
 as far as the wealth of a citizen of Thermae could afford. And these things, when he
 was in Asia as a young man, he had
 collected diligently, as I said, not so much for any pleasure to himself, as for
 ornaments against the visits of Roman citizens, his own friends and connections,
 whenever he invited them.

But after Verres got them all, some by begging for then, some by demanding them,
 and some by boldly taking them, Sthenius bore it as well as he could, but he was
 affected with unavoidable indignation in his mind, at that fellow having rendered
 his house, which had been so beautifully furnished and decorated, naked and empty;
 still he told his indignation to no one. He thought he must bear the injuries of the
 praetor in silence—those of his guest with calmness.

Meantime that man, with that covetousness of his which was now notorious and the
 common talk of every one, as he took a violent fancy to some exceedingly beautiful
 and very ancient statues at Thermae placed in the public place, began to beg of
 Sthenius to promise him his countenance and to aid him in taking them away. But
 Sthenius not only refused, but declared to him that it was utterly impossible that
 most ancient statues, memorials of Publius Africanus, should ever be taken away out
 of the town of the Thermitani, as long as that city and the empire of the Roman
 people remained uninjured.

Indeed, (that you may learn at the same time both the humanity and the justice of
 Publius Africanus,) the Carthaginians had formerly taken the town of Himera, one of
 the first towns in Sicily for renown and
 for beauty. Scipio as he thought it a thing worthy of the Roman people, that, after
 the war was over, our allies should recover their property in consequence of our
 victory, took care, after Carthage had
 been taken, that everything which he could manage should be restored to all the
 Sicilians. As Himera had been destroyed, those citizens whom the disasters of the
 war had spared had settled at Thermae, on the border of the same district, and not
 far from their ancient town. They thought that they were recovering the fortune and
 dignity of their fathers, when those ornaments of their ancestors were being placed
 in the town of Thermae.

There were many statues of brass; among them a statue of Himera herself, of
 marvellous beauty, made in the shape and dress of a woman, after the name of the
 town and of the river. There was also a statue of the poet Stesichorus, aged,
 stooping,—made, as men think, with the most exceeding skill,—who was, indeed, a
 citizen of Himera, but who both was and is in the highest renown and estimation over
 all Greece for his genius. These things he
 coveted to a degree of madness. There is also, which I had almost passed over, a
 certain she-goat made, as even we who are skilled in these matters can judge, with
 wonderful skill and beauty. These, and other works of art, Scipio had not thrown
 away like a fool, in order that an intelligent man like Verres might have an
 opportunity of carrying them away, but he had restored them to the people of
 Thermae; not that he himself had not gardens, or a suburban villa, or some place or
 other where he could put them; but, if he had taken them home, they would not long
 have been called Scipio's, but theirs to whom they had come by his death. Now they
 are placed in such places that it seems to me they will always seem to be Scipio's,
 and so they are called.

When that fellow claimed those things, and the subject was mooted in the senate,
 Sthenius resisted his claim most earnestly, and urged many arguments, for he is
 among the first men in all Sicily for
 fluency of speech. He said that it was more honourable for the men of Thermae to
 abandon their city than to allow the memorials of their ancestors, the spoils of
 their enemies, the gifts of a most illustrious man, the proofs of the alliance and
 friendship with the Roman people, to be taken away out of their city. The minds of
 all were moved. No one was found who did not agree that it was better to die. And so
 Verres found this town almost the only one in the whole world from which he could
 not carry off anything of that sort belonging to the community, either by violence,
 or by stealth, or by his own absolute power, or by his interest, or by bribery. But,
 however, all this covetousness of his I will expose another time; at present I must
 return to Sthenius.

Verres being furiously enraged against Sthenius, renounces the connection of
 hospitality with him, leaves his house, and departs; 
 for, indeed, he had moved his quarters before. The greatest enemies of Sthenius
 immediately invite him to their houses, in order to inflame his mind against
 Sthenius by inventing lies and accusing him. And these enemies were, Agathinus, a
 man of noble birth, and Dorotheus, who had married Callidama, the daughter of that
 same Agathinus, of whom Verres had heard. So he preferred migrating to the
 son-in-law of Agathinus. Only one night elapsed before he became so intimate with
 Dorotheus, that, as one might say, they had everything in common. He paid as great
 attention to Agathinus as if he had been some connection or relation of his own. He
 appeared even to despise that statue of Himera, because the figure and features of
 his hostess delighted him much more.

Therefore he began to instigate the men to create some danger for Sthenius, and to
 invent some accusation against him. They said they had nothing to allege against
 him. On this he openly declared to them, and promised to them that they might prove
 whatever they pleased against Sthenius if they only laid the information before him.
 So they do not delay. They immediately bring Sthenius before him; they say that the
 public documents have been tampered with by him. Sthenius demands, that as his own
 fellow-citizens are prosecuting him on a charge of tampering with the public
 documents, and as there is a right of action on such a charge according to the laws
 of the Thermitani since the senate and people of Rome had restored to the Thermitani their city, and their territory
 and their laws, because they had always remained faithful and friendly; and since
 Publius Rupilius had afterwards, in obedience to a degree of the senate, given laws
 to the Sicilinus, acting with the advice of ten commissioners, according to which
 the citizens were to use their own laws in their actions with one another; and singe
 Verres himself had the same regulation contained in his edict;—on all these
 accounts, I say, he claims of Verres to refer the matter to their own laws.

That man, the justest of all men, and the most remote from covetousness, declares
 that he will investigate the affair himself, and bids him come prepared to plead his
 cause at the eighth hour. It was not difficult to see what that dishonest and wicked
 man was designing. And, indeed, he did not himself very much disguise it, and the
 woman could not hold her tongue. It was understood that his intention was, that,
 after he, without any pleading taking place, and without any witnesses being called,
 had condemned Sthenius, then, infamous that he was, he should cause the man, a man
 of noble birth, of mature age, and his own host, to be cruelly punished by
 scourging. And as this was notorious, by the advice of his friends and connections,
 Sthenius fled from there to Rome . He
 preferred trusting himself to the winter and to the waves, rather than not escape
 that common tempest and calamity of all the Sicilians.

That punctual and diligent man is ready at the eighth hour. He orders Sthenius to
 be summoned; and, when he sees that he does not appear, he begins to burn with
 indignation, and to go mad with rage; to despatch officers to his house;
 to send horsemen in every direction about his farms and country houses,—and as he
 kept waiting there till some certain news could be brought to him, he did not leave
 the court till the third hour of the night. The next day he came down again the
 first thing in the morning; he calls Agathinus, he bids him make his statement about
 the public documents against Sthenius in his absence. It was a cause of such a
 character, that, even though he had no adversary in court, and a judge unfriendly to
 the defendant, still he could not find anything to say.

So that he confined himself to the mere statement that, when Sacerdos was praetor,
 Sthenius had tampered with the public documents. He had scarcely said this when
 Verres gives sentence “that Sthenius seems to have tampered with the public
 documents,” and, moreover, this man so devoted to Venus, added this besides, with no
 precedent for, no example of, such an addition, “For that action he should adjudge
 five hundred thousand sesterces to Venus Erycina
 out of the property of Sthenius.” And immediately he began to sell his property; and
 he would have sold it, if there had been ever so little delay in paying him the
 money.

After it was paid, he was not content with this iniquity; he gave notice openly
 from the seat of justice, and from the tribunal, “That if any one wished to accuse
 Sthenius in his absence of a capital charge, he was ready to take the charge.” And
 immediately he began to instigate Agathinus, his new relation and host, to apply
 himself to such a cause, and to accuse him. But he said loudly, in the hearing of
 every one, that he would not do so, and that he was not so far an enemy to Sthenius
 as to say that he was implicated in any capital crime. Just at this moment a man of
 the name of Pacilius, a needy and worthless man, arrives on a sudden. He says, that
 he is willing to accuse the man in his absence if he may. And Verres tells him that
 he may, that it is a thing often done, and that he will receive the accusation. So
 the charge is made. Verres immediately issues an edict that Sthenius is to appear at
 Syracuse on the first of
 December.

He, when he had reached Rome , and had a
 sufficiently prosperous voyage for so unfavourable a time of year, and had found
 everything more just and gentle than the disposition of the praetor, his own guest,
 related the whole matter to his friends, and it appeared to them all cruel and
 scandalous, as indeed it was. Therefore Cnaeus Lentulus and Lucius Gellius the consuls immediately
 propose in the senate that it be established as a law, if it so seem good to the
 conscript fathers, “That men be not proceeded against on capital charges in the
 provinces while they are absent.” They relate to the senate the whole case of
 Sthenius, and the cruelty and injustice of Verres. Verres, the father of the
 praetor, was present in the senate, and with tears begged all the senators to spare
 his son, but he had not much success. For the inclination of the senate for the
 proposal of the consuls was extreme. Therefore opinions were delivered to this
 effect; “that as Sthenius had been proceeded against in his absence, it seemed good
 to the senate that no trial should take place in the case of an absent man; and if
 anything had been done, it seemed good that it should not be ratified.”

On that day nothing could be done, because it was so late, and because his father
 had found men to waste the time in speaking. Afterwards the elder Verres goes to all
 the defenders and connections of Sthenius; he begs and entreats them not to attack
 his son, not to be anxious about Sthenius; he assures them that he will take care
 that he suffers no injury by means of his son; that with that object he will send
 trustworthy men into Sicily both by sea and
 land. And it wanted now about thirty days of the first of December, on which day he
 had ordered Sthenius to appear at Syracuse .

The friends of Sthenius are moved; they hope that by the letters and messengers of
 the father the Bon may be called off from his insane attempt. The cause is not
 agitated any more in the senate. Family messengers come to Verres, and bring him
 letters from his father before the first of December, before any steps whatever had
 been taken by him in Sthenius's affair; and at the same time many letters about the
 same business are brought to him from many of his friends and intimates. On this he, who had never any
 regard either for his duty or his danger, or for affection, or for humanity, when
 put in competition with his covetousness, did not think, as far as he was advised,
 that the authority of his father, nor, as far as he was entreated, that his
 inclination was to be preferred to the gratification of his own evil passions. On
 the morning of the first of December, according to his edict, he orders Sthenius to
 be summoned.

If your father, at the request of any friend, whether influenced by kindness or
 wishing to curry favour with him, had made that petition to you, still the
 inclination of your father ought to have had the greatest weight with you; but when
 he begged it of you for the sake of your own safety from a capital charge, and when
 he had sent trustworthy men from home, and when they had come to you at a time when
 the whole affair was still intact, could not even then a regard, if not for
 affection, at least for your own safety, bring you back to duty and to common sense?
 He summons the defendant. He does not answer. He summons the accuser. (Mark, I pray
 you, O judges; see how greatly fortune herself opposed that man's insanity, and see
 at the same time what chance aided the cause of Sthenius;) the accuser, Marcus
 Pacilius, being summoned, (I know not how it came about,) did not answer, did not
 appear.

If Sthenius had been accused while present, if he had been detected in a manifest
 crime, still, as his accuser did not appear, Sthenius ought not to have been
 condemned. In truth, if a defendant could be condemned though his accuser did not
 appear, I should not have come from Vibo to Velia in a little boat through the weapons of fugitive slaves, and
 pirates, and through yours, at a time when all that haste of mine at the peril of my
 life was to prevent your being taken out of the list of defendants if I did not
 appear on the appointed day. If then in this trial of yours that was the most
 desirable thing by you,—namely, for me not to appear when I was summoned, why did
 you not think that it ought also to serve Sthenius that his accuser had not
 appeared? He so managed the matter that the end entirely corresponded to the
 beginning; the same man against whom he had received an accusation while he was
 absent, he condemns now when the accuser is absent.

At the very outset news was brought to him that the matter had been agitated in
 the senate, (which his father also had written him word of at great length,) that
 also in the public assembly Marcus Palicanus, a tribune of the people, had made a
 complaint to their of the treatment of Sthenius; lastly, that I myself had pleaded
 the cause of Sthenius before this college of the tribunes of the people, as by their
 edict no one was allowed to remain in Rome 
 who had been condemned on a capital charge; and that when I had explained the business as I have now
 done to you, and had proved that this had no right to be considered a condemnation,
 the tribunes of the people passed this resolution, and that it was unanimously
 decreed by them, “That Sthenius did not appear to be prohibited by their edict from
 remaining in Rome .”

When this news was brought to him, he for a while was alarmed and agitated; he
 turned the blunt end of his pen on to his
 tablets, and by so doing he overturned the whole of his cause. For he left himself
 nothing which could be defended by any means whatever. For if he were to urge in his
 defence, “It is lawful to take a charge against an absent man, no law forbids this
 being done in a province,” he would seem to be putting forth a faulty and worthless
 defence, but still it would be some sort of a defence. Lastly, he might employ that
 most desperate refuge, of saying, that he had acted ignorantly; that he had thought
 that it was lawful. And although this is the worst defence of all, still he would
 seem to have said something. He erases that from his tablets which he had put down,
 and enters “that the charge was brought against Sthenius while he was present.”

Here consider in how many toils he involved himself; from which he could never
 disentangle himself. In the first place, he had often and openly declared himself in
 Sicily from his tribunal, and had
 asserted to many people in private conversation, that it was lawful to take a charge
 against an absent man; that he, for example, had done so himself—which he had. That
 he was in the habit of constantly saying this, was stated at the former pleading by
 Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, a man of whose virtue I have before spoken highly; and by
 Cnaeus Pompeius Theodorus, a man approved of by the judgment of that most
 illustrious man Cnaeus Pompeius in many most important affairs, and, by universal
 consent, a most accomplished person; and by Posides Matro of Solentum, a man of the
 highest rank, of the greatest reputation and virtue. And as many as you please will
 tell you the same thing at this present trial, both men who have heard it from his
 own mouth,—some of the leading men of our order,—and others too who were present
 when the accusation was taken against Sthenius in his absence. Moreover at
 Rome , when the matter was discussed in
 the senate, all his friends, and among them his own father, defended him on the
 ground of its being lawful so to act;—of its having been done constantly;—of his
 having done what he had done according to the example and established precedent of
 others.

Besides, all Sicily gives evidence of the
 fact which in the common petitions of all the states has prescribed this request to
 the consuls, “to beg and entreat of the conscript fathers, not to allow charges to
 be received against the absent.” Concerning which matter you heard Cnaeus Lentulus,
 the advocate of Sicily , and a most
 admirable young man, say, that the Sicilians, when they were instructing him in
 their case, and pointing out to him what matters were to be urged in their behalf
 before the senate, complained much of this misfortune of Sthenius, and on account of
 this injustice which had been done to Sthenius, resolved to make this demand which I
 have mentioned.

And as this is the ease, were you endued with such insanity and audacity, as, in a
 matter so clear, so thoroughly proved,—made so notorious even by you yourself, to
 dare to corrupt the public records? But how did you corrupt them? Did you not do it
 in such a way that, even if we all kept silence, still your own handwriting would be
 sufficient to condemn you? Give me, it you please, the document. Take it round to
 the judges; show it to them. Do you not see that the whole of this entry, where he
 states that the charge was made against Sthenius in his presence, is a correction?
 What was written there before? What blunder did he correct when he made that
 erasure? Why, O judges, do you wait for proofs of this charge from us? We say
 nothing; the books are before you, which cry out themselves that they have been
 tampered with and amended.

Do you think you can possibly escape out of this business, when we are following
 you up, not by any uncertain opinion, but by your own traces, which you have left
 deeply printed and fresh in the public documents? Has he decided, (I should like to
 know,) without hearing the cause, that Sthenius has tampered with the public
 documents, who cannot possibly defend himself from the charge of having tampered
 with the public documents in the case of that very Sthenius?

See now another instance of madness; see how, in trying to acquit himself; he
 entangles himself still more. He assigns an advocate to Sthenius.—Whom? Any relation
 or intimate friend? No.—Any citizen, any honourable and noble man of Florence ? Not even that.—At least it was some
 Sicilian, in whom there was some credit and dignity? Far from it.—Whom then did he
 assign to him? A Roman citizen. Who can approve of this? When Sthenius was the man
 of the highest rank in his city, a man of most extensive connections, with
 numberless friends; when, besides, he was of the greatest influence all over
 Sicily , by his own personal character and
 popularity; could he find no Sicilian who was willing to be appointed his advocate?
 Will you approve of this? Did he himself prefer a Roman citizen? Tell me what
 Sicilian, when he was defendant in any action, ever had a Roman citizen assigned to
 him as his advocate? Produce the records of all the praetors who preceded Verres;
 open them. If you find one such instance, I will then admit to you that this was
 done as you have entered it in your public documents.

Oh but, I suppose, Sthenius thought it honourable to himself for Verres to choose
 a man for his advocate out of the number of Roman citizens who were his own friends
 and connections! Whom did he choose? Whose name is written in the records? Caius
 Claudius, the son of Caius, of the Palatine 
 tribe. I do not ask who this Claudius is; how illustrious, how honourable, how well
 suited to the business, and deserving that, because of his influence and dignity,
 Sthenius should abandon the custom of all the Sicilians, and have a Roman citizen
 for his advocate. I do not ask any of these questions;—for perhaps Sthenius was
 influenced not by the high position of the man, but by his intimacy with him.—What?
 What shall we say if there was in the whole world a greater enemy to Sthenius than
 this very Caius Claudius, both constantly in old times, and especially at this time
 and in this affair?—if he appeared against him on the charge of tampering with the
 public documents?—if he opposed him by every means in his power? Which shall we
 believe,—that an enemy of Sthenius was actually appointed his advocate, or that you,
 at a time of the greatest danger to Sthenius, made free with the name of his enemy,
 to ensure his ruin?

And that no one may have any doubt as to the real nature of the whole transaction,
 although I feel sure that by this time that man's rascality is pretty evident to you
 all, still listen yet a little longer. Do you see that man with curly hair, of a
 dark complexion, who is looking at us with such a countenance as shows that he seems
 to himself a very clever fellow? him, I mean, who has the papers in his hand—who is
 writing—who is prompting him—who is next to him. That is Caius Claudius, who in
 Sicily was considered Verres's agent and
 interpreter, the manager of all his dirty work, a sort of colleague to Timarchides.
 Now he is promoted so high that he scarcely seems to yield to Apronius in intimacy
 with him; indeed he called himself the colleague and ally not of Timarchides, but of
 Verres himself.

Now doubt, if you can, that he chose that man of all the world to impose the
 worthless character of a false advocate on, whom he knew to be most hostile to
 Sthenius, and most friendly to himself. And will you hesitate in this case, O
 judges, to punish such enormous audacity and cruelty and injustice as that of this
 man? Will you hesitate to follow the example of those judges, who, when they had
 condemned Cnaeus Dolabella, rescinded the condemnation of Philodamus of Opus,
 because a charge had been received against him not in his absence, which is of all
 things the most unjust and the most intolerable, but after a commission had been
 given him by his fellow-citizens to proceed to Rome as their ambassador? That precedent which the judges, in
 obedience to the principles of equity, established in a less important cause, will
 you hesitate to adopt in a cause of the greatest consequence, especially now that it
 has been established by the authority of others?

But who was it, O Verres, whom you treated with such great, with such unexampled
 injustice? Against whom did you receive a charge in his absence? Whom did you
 condemn in his absence; not only without any crime, and without any witness, but
 even without any accuser? Who was it? O ye immortal gods! I will not say your own
 friend,—that which is the dearest title among men. I will not say your host,—which
 is the most holy name. There is nothing in Sthenius's case which I speak of less
 willingly. The only thing which I find it possible to blame him in is,—that he, a
 most moderate and upright man, invited you, a man full of adultery, and crime, and
 wickedness, to his house; that he, who had been and was connected by ties of
 hospitality with Caius Marius, with Cnaeus Pompeius, with Caius Marcellus, with
 Lucius Sisenna, your defender, and with other excellent citizens, added your name
 also to that of those unimpeachable men.

On which account I make no complaint of violated hospitality, and of your
 abominable wickedness in violating it; I say this not to those who know
 Sthenius,—that is to say, not to any one of those who have been in Sicily ; (for no one who has is ignorant in how great
 authority he lived in his own city, in what great honour and consideration among all
 the Sicilians;) but I say it that those, too, who have not been in the province, may
 be able to understand who he was in whose case you established such a precedent,
 that both on account of the iniquity of the deed, as well as on account of the rank
 of the man, it appeared scandalous and intolerable to every one.

Is not Sthenius the man, he who when he had very easily obtained all the
 honourable offices in his city, executed them with the greatest splendor, and
 magnificence?—who decorated a town, not itself of the first rank, with most spacious
 places of public resort, and most splendid monuments, at his own expense?—on account
 of whose good services towards the state of Thermae, and towards all the Sicilians,
 a brazen tablet was set up in the senate-house at Thermae; in which mention was made
 of his services, and engraved at the public expense?—which tablet was torn down
 under your government, and is now brought hither by me, that all may know the honour
 in which he was held among his countrymen, and his preeminent dignity.

Is this the man, who when he was accused before that most illustrious man, Cnaeus
 Pompeius, and when his enemies and accusers charged him, in terms calculated to
 excite odium against him, rather than true, of having been ill affected to the
 republic on account of his intimacy and his connections of hospitality with Caius
 Marius, was acquitted by Cnaeus Pompeius with such language as showed that, from
 what had come out at that very trial, Cnaeus Pompeius judged him most worthy of his
 own intimacy? and moreover was defended and extolled by all the Sicilians in such a
 manner, that Pompeius thought that by his acquittal he had earned, not only the
 gratitude of the man himself, but that of the whole province? Lastly, is not he the
 man who had such affection towards the republic, and also such great authority among
 his fellow-citizens, that he alone in all Sicily , while you were praetor, did what not only no other Sicilian,
 but what all Sicily even could not
 do,—namely, prevented you from taking away any statue, any ornament, any sacred
 vessel, or any public property from Thermae; and that too when there were many
 remarkable beautiful things there, and though you coveted everything?

See now, what a difference there is between you, in whose name days of festival
 are kept among the Sicilians, and those splendid Verrean games, are celebrated; to
 whom gilt statues are erected at Rome ,
 presented by the commonwealth of Sicily , as
 we see inscribed upon them;—see, I say, what a difference there is between you and
 this Sicilian, who was condemned by you, the patron of Sicily . Him very many cities of Sicily praise by public resolutions in his favour, by their own
 evidence, by deputations went hither with that object. You, the patron of all the
 Sicilians, the solitary state of the Mamertini, the partner of your thefts and
 crimes, praises publicly; and yet in such a way that, by a new process, the deputies
 themselves injure your cause, though the deputation praises you. These other states
 all publicly accuse you, complain of you, impeach you by letters, by deputations, by
 evidence; and, if you are acquitted, think themselves utterly ruined.

It is in the case of this man and of his property that you have erected a monument
 of your crimes and cruelty even on Mount Eryx itself; on which is inscribed the name
 Sthenius of Thermae. I saw a Cupid made of silver, with a torch. What object had
 you,—what reason was there for employing the plunder of Sthenius on that subject
 rather than on any other? Did you wish it to be a token of your own cupidity, or a
 trophy of your friendship and connection of hospitality with him, or a proof of your
 love towards him? Men, who in their excelling wickedness are pleased not only with
 their lust and pleasure itself, but also with the fame of their wickedness, do wish
 to leave in many places the marks and traces of their crimes.

He was burning with love of that hostess for whose sake he had violated the laws
 of hospitality. He wished that not only to be known, but also to be recorded for
 ever. And therefore, out of the proceeds of that very action which he had performed,
 Agathinus being the accuser, he thought that a reward was especially due to Venus,
 who had caused the prosecution and the whole proceeding. I should think you grateful
 to the Gods if you had given this gift to Venus, not out of the property of
 Sthenius, but out of your own, as you ought to have done, especially as an
 inheritance had come to you from Chelidon that very same year.

On these grounds now, even if I had not undertaken this cause at the request of
 all the Sicilians; if the whole province had not requested this favour of me; if my
 affection and love for the republic, and the injury done to the credit of our order
 and of the courts of justice, had not compelled me to do so; and if this had been my
 only reason, that you had so cruelly, and wickedly, and abominably treated my friend
 and connection Sthenius, to
 whom I had formed an extraordinary attachment in my quaestorship, of whom I had the
 highest possible opinion, whom while I was in the province I knew to be most zealous
 and earnest for my reputation,—I should still think I had plenty of reason to incur
 the enmity of a most worthless man, in order to defend the safety and fortunes of my
 friend.

Many men have done the same in the times of our ancestors. Lately, too, that most
 eminent man Cnaeus Domitius did so, who accused Marcus Silanus, a man of consular
 rank, on account of the injuries done by him to Egritomarus of the Transalpine
 country, his friend. I should think it became me to follow the example of their good
 feeling and regard for their duty; and I should hold out hope to my friends and
 connections to think that they would live a safer life owing to my protection. But
 when the cause of Sthenius draws along with it the common calamity of the whole
 province, and when many of my friends and connections are being defended by me at
 the same time, both in their public and private interests, I ought not in truth to
 fear that any one can suppose that I have done what I have in undertaking this cause
 under the pressure and compulsion of any motive except that of the strictest duty.
 And that we may at last
 give up speaking of the investigations made, and the judicial proceedings conducted,
 and of the decisions given by that man; and as his exploits of that class are
 countless, let us put some bounds and limits to our speech and accusation. We will
 take a few cases of another sort.

You have heard Quintus Varius say, that his agents paid
 that man a hundred and thirty thousand sesterces 
 for a decision in his cause. You recollect that the evidence of Quintus Varius was
 corroborated, and that this whole affair was proved by the testimony of Caius
 Sacerdos, a most excellent man. You know that Cnaeus Sertius and Marcus Modius,
 Roman knights, and that six hundred Roman citizens besides, and many Sicilians, said
 that they had given that money for decisions in their causes. And why need I dilate
 upon this accusation when the whole matter is set plainly forth in the evidence? Why
 should I argue about what no one can doubt? Or will any man in the world doubt that
 he set up his judicial decisions for sale in Sicily , when at Rome he
 sold his very edict and all his decrees? and that he received money from the
 Sicilians in issuing extraordinary decrees, when he actually made a demand on Marcus
 Octavius Ligur for giving a decision on his cause?

For what method of extorting money did he ever omit? What method did he fail to
 devise, even if it had escaped the notice of every one else? Was anything in the
 Sicilian states ever sought to be obtained in which there is any honour, any power,
 or any authority, that you did not make it a source of your own gain, and sell it to
 the best bidder? At the
 former pleading evidence was given of both a public and a private nature; deputies
 from Centuripa, from Halesa, from Catina ,
 and from Panormus , and from many other
 cities gave evidence; but now, also, a great many private individuals have been
 examined, by whose testimony you have ascertained that no one in all Sicily for the space of three years was ever made
 senator in any city for nothing,—no one by vote, as their laws prescribe,—no one
 except by his command, or by his letters; and that in the appointment of all these
 senators, not only were no votes given, but there was not even any consideration of
 those families from which it was lawful to select men for that body, nor of their
 income, nor of their age; nor were any other of the Sicilian laws of the slightest
 influence.

Whoever wished to be made a senator, though he was a boy, though he was unworthy,
 though he was of a class from which it was not lawful to take senators; still, if he
 paid money enough to appear in his eyes a fit man to gain his object, so it always
 was. Not only the laws of the Sicilians had no influence in this matter, but even
 those which had been given to them by the senate and people of Rome had none either. For the laws which he makes
 who has the supreme command given to him by the Roman people, and authority to make
 laws conferred on him by the senate, ought to be considered the laws of the senate
 and people of Rome .

The citizens of Halesa, who were till lately in the enjoyment of their own laws,
 in return for the numerous and great services and good deeds done both by themselves
 and by their ancestors to our republic, lately in the consulship of Lucius Licinius
 and Quintus Mucius, requested laws from our senate, as they had disputes among
 themselves about the elections into their senate. The senate, by a very honourable
 decree, voted that Caius Claudius Pulcher, the son of Appius the praetor, should
 give them laws to regulate their elections into their senate. Caius Claudius, taking
 as his counselors all the Marcelli who were then alive, with their advice gave laws
 to the men of Halesa in which he laid down many rules about the age of the men who
 might be elected; that no one might be under thirty years of age; about trade,—that
 no one engaged in it might be elected; about their income, and about all other
 matters; all which regulations prevailed till that man became praetor by the
 authority of our magistrates, and with the cordial good-will of the men of Halesa.
 But from him even a crier who was desirous of it, bought that rank for a sum of
 money, and boys sixteen and seventeen years old purchased the title of senator; and
 that which the men of Halesa, our most ancient and faithful allies and friends, had
 petitioned, and that successfully, at Rome , to have put on such a footing that it might not be lawful for men
 to be elected even by vote, he now made easy to be obtained by bribery.

The people of Agrigentum have old laws
 about appointing their senate, given them by Scipio, in which the same principles
 are laid down, and this one besides,—as there are two classes of Agrigentines, one
 of the old inhabitants, and the other of the new,—settlers whom Titus Manlius, when
 praetor, had led from other towns of the Sicilians to Agrigentum , in obedience to a resolution of the senate;—it was
 provided in the laws of Scipio, that there should not be a greater number of members
 of the senate taken from the class of settlers than from the old inhabitants of
 Agrigentum . That man, who had levelled
 all laws by bribery, and who had taken away all distinction between things for
 money, not only disturbed all those regulations which related to age, rank, and
 traffic, but even with respect to these two classes of old and new inhabitants, he
 disturbed the proportion of their selection.

For when a senator died of the old inhabitants, and when the remaining number of
 each class was equal, it was necessary, according to the laws, that one of the
 original inhabitants should be elected in order that there might be the larger
 number. And though this was the case, still, not only some of the original
 inhabitants, but also some of the new settlers, came to him to purchase the rank of
 senator. The result is, that through bribery, one of the new men carries the day,
 and gets letters of appointment from the praetor. The Agrigentines send deputies to
 him to inform him of their laws, and to explain to him the invariable usage of past
 years, in order that he might be aware that he had sold that rank to one with whom
 he had no right even to treat on the subject. By whose speech, as he had already
 received the money, he was not in the least influenced.

He did the same thing at Heraclea . For
 thither also Publius Rupilius led settlers and gave them similar laws about the
 appointment of the senate, and about the number of the old and new senators. There
 he did not only receive money, as he did in the other cities, but he even confused
 the class of the original inhabitants and of the new settlers. Do not wait for me to go through all the
 cities of Sicily in my speech. In this one
 statement I comprehend everything,—that no one could be made a senator while he was
 praetor except those who had given him money.

And I carry on the same charge to all magistracies, agencies, and priesthoods; by
 which acts he has not only trampled on the laws of men, but on all the religious
 reverence due to the immortal gods. There is at Syracuse a law respecting their religion, which enjoins a priest of
 Jupiter to be taken by lot every year;
 and that priesthood is considered among the Syracusans as the most honourable.

When three men have been selected by vote out of the three classes of citizens,
 the matter is decided by lot. He by his absolute command had contrived to have his
 intimate friend Theomnastus returned among the three by vote. When it came to the
 decision by lot, which he could not command, men were waiting to see what he would
 do. The fellow at first forbade them to elect by lot, as that seemed the easiest
 way, and ordered Theomnastus to be appointed without casting lots. The Syracusans
 say that cannot possibly be done, according to the reverence due to their sacred
 laws; they say it would be impious. He orders the law to be read to him. It is read.
 In it was written, “that as many lots were to be thrown into the urn as there were
 names returned; that he whose name was drawn was to have the priesthood.” He then,
 ingenious and clever man! said, “Capital! it is written, ‘As many lots as there are
 names returned;’ how many names then were returned?” It is answered, “Three.” “Is
 there then anything necessary except that three lots should be put in, and one drawn
 out?” “Nothing.” He orders three lots to be put in, on all of which was written the
 name of Theomnastus. A great outcry arises as it seemed to every one a scandalous
 and infamous proceeding. And so by these means that most honourable priesthood is
 given to Theomnastus.

At Cephalaedium there is a regular month, in which the pontifex is bound to be
 appointed. A man of the name of Artemo, surnamed Climachias, was desirous of that
 honour a man of sufficient riches to be sure, and of noble family; but he could not
 possibly have been appointed if a man of the name of Herodotus had been present. For
 that place and rank was thought to be so decidedly due to him for that year, that
 even Climachias could say nothing against him. The matter is referred to Verres, and
 is decided according to his usual fashion. Some beautiful and valuable specimens of
 carving are removed from Artemo's. Herodotus was at Rome ; he thought that he should arrive in time enough for the comitia
 if he came the day before. Verres, in order that the comitia might not be held in
 any other month than the regular one, and that the honour might not be refused to
 Herodotus when he was present, (a thing which he was not anxious for, and which
 Climachias was very eager to avoid,) contrives, (I have said before, there is no one
 cleverer, and never was, in his way,)—he contrives, I say, how the comitia may be
 held in the regular month for them, and yet Herodotus may not be able to be
 present.

It is a custom of the Sicilians, and of the rest of the Greeks, because they wish
 their days and months to agree with the calculations as to the sun and moon, if
 there be any difference sometimes to take out a day, or, at most, two days from a
 month, which they call e)caire/simoi . And so also
 they sometimes make a month longer by a day or by two days. And when he heard of
 that, he, this new astronomer, who was thinking not so much of the heavens as of the
 heavy plate, he orders (not a day to be
 taken out of the month, but) a month and a half to be taken out of the year; so that
 the day which, as one may say, ought to have been the thirteenth of January, became
 the first of March. And that is done in spite of the remonstrances and indignation
 of every one. That was the legitimate day for holding the comitia. On that day
 Climachias is declared to have been elected priest.

When Herodotus returns from Rome ,
 fifteen days, as he supposed, before the comitia, he comes on the month of the
 comitia, when the comitia have been held thirty days before. Then the people of
 Cephalaedium voted an intercalary month of forty-five days, in order that the rest
 of the months might fall again into their proper season. If these things could be
 done at Rome , no doubt he would somehow or
 other have contrived to have the forty-five days between the two sets of games taken
 away, during which days alone this trial could take place.

But now it is worth while to see how the censors were appointed in Sicily while that man was praetor. For that is the
 magistracy among the Sicilians, the appointments to which are made by the people
 with the greatest care, because all the Sicilians pay a yearly tax in proportion to
 their incomes; and, in making the census, the power is entrusted to the censor of
 making every sort of valuation, and of determining the total amount of every man's
 contribution. Therefore the people choose with the greatest care the man in whom
 they can place the greatest confidence in a matter affecting their own property; and
 on account of the greatness of the power, this magistracy is an object of the
 greatest ambition.

In such a matter, Verres did not choose to do any thing obscurely, nor to play
 tricks in the drawing of lots, nor to take days out of the calendar. He did not
 choose to do anything in an underhand manner, or by means of artifice; but in order
 to take away the fondness and desire for honours and ambition out of every city,
 feelings which usually tend to the ruin of a state, he declared that he should
 appoint the censors in every city.

When the praetor announced so vast a scene of bargaining and trafficking as that,
 people came to Syracuse to see him,
 from all quarters. The whole of the praetor's house was on fire with the eagerness
 and cupidity of men; and no wonder, when all the comitia of so many cities were
 packed together into one house, and when all the ambition of an entire province was
 confined in one chamber. Bribes being openly asked for, and biddings being openly
 made, Timarchides appointed two censors for every city. He, by his own labour, and
 by his own visits to every one, by all the trouble which he took in this employment,
 achieved this, that all the money came to Verres without his having any anxiety on
 his part. How much money this Timarchides made, you cannot as yet know; for a
 certainty; but in what a variety of manners, and how shamefully, he plundered
 people, you heard at the former pleading, by the evidence of many witnesses.

But that you may not wonder how that freedman obtained so much influence with him,
 I will tell you briefly what the man is; so that you may both see the worthlessness
 of the man who kept such a fellow about him, especially in that employment and
 position, and that you may also see the misery of the province. In the seduction of
 women, and in all licentiousness and wickedness of that character, I found this
 Timarchides wonderfully fitted by nature to be subservient to his infamous lusts,
 and unexampled profligacy. In finding out who people were, in calling on them, in
 addressing them, in bribing them, in doing anything in matters of that sort, however
 cunningly, however audaciously, however shamelessly it might be necessary to go to
 work, I heard that this man could contrive admirable schemes for ensuring success.
 For, as for Verres himself, he was only a man of a covetousness ever open-mouthed,
 and ever threatening, but he had no ingenuity, no resources; so that, in whatever he
 did of his own accord, (just as you know was the case with him at Rome ,) he seemed to rob openly rather than to
 cheat.

But the other fellow's skill and artifice were marvellous, so that he could hunt
 out and scent out with the greatest acuteness, all over the province, whatever had
 happened to any one, whatever any one stood in need of. He was able to find out, to
 converse with, to tamper with every one's foes, and every one's enemies; to know the
 circumstances of every trial on both sides; to ascertain men's inclinations, and
 power, and resources; where it was necessary to strike terror; where it was
 desirable to hold out hope. Every accuser, every informer, he had in his power, if
 he wished to cause trouble to any one, he did it without any difficulty. All
 Verres's decrees, and commands, and letters, he sold in the most skillful and
 cunning manner.

And he was not only the minister of Verres's pleasures, he also took equally good
 care of himself. He not only picked up whatever money had slipped through his
 principal's fingers, by which he amassed great riches, but he also picked up the
 relics of his pleasures and of his profligacy. Therefore do not fancy that Athenio
 reigned in
 Sicily , for he took no city; but know ye
 that the runaway slave Timarchides reigned in every city of Sicily for three years; that the children, the
 matrons, the property, and all the fortunes of the most ancient and most devoted
 allies of the Roman people were all that time in the power of Timarchides. He
 therefore, as I say, he, Timarchides, sent censors into every city, having taken
 bribes for their appointment. Comitia for the election of censors, while Verres was
 praetor, were never held not even for the purpose of making a presence of legality.

This was the most shameless business of all. Three hundred denarii were openly
 exacted (for this, forsooth, was permitted by the laws) from each censor, to be paid
 down for the praetors statue. There were appointed a hundred and thirty censors.
 They gave one sum of money for the censorship contrary to the law; these thirty-nine
 thousand denarii they openly paid down for the statue, in compliance with the laws.
 First of all, what was all that money for? Secondly, why did the censors pay it to
 you for your statue? I suppose there is a regular order of censors, a college of
 them. They are a distinct class of men! Why, it is either cities in their capacity
 of communities, that confer these honours, or men according to their classes, as
 cultivators, as merchants, as shipowners. But why to censors rather than to aediles?
 Is it for any service that they have done? Therefore, will you confess that these
 things were begged of you,—for you will not dare to say they were purchased of
 you;—that you granted those magistracies to men out of favour, and not with a new to
 the interests of the republic? And when you confess this, will any one doubt that
 you incurred that unpopularity held hatred among the different tribes of that
 province, not out of ambition, nor for the sake of doing a kindness to any one, but
 with the object of procuring money?

Therefore those censors did the same thing that those do in our republic, who have
 got offices by bribery; they took care to use their power so as to fill up again
 that gap in their property. The census was so taken, when you were praetor, that the
 affairs of no state whatever could be administered according to such a census. For
 they made a low return of the incomes of all the richest men, and exaggerated that
 of each poor man. And so in levying the taxes so heavy a burden was laid upon the
 common people, that even if the men themselves said nothing, the facts alone would
 discredit that census, as may easily be understood from the circumstances
 themselves. For Lucius
 Metellus who, after I came into Sicily for
 the sake of prosecuting my injuries, became on a sudden after the arrival of
 Letilius not only the friend of Verres, but even his relative; because he saw that
 that census could not possibly stand, ordered that former one to be attended to
 which had been when that most gallant and upright man, Sextus Peducaeus, was
 praetor. For at that time there were censors made according to the laws, elected by
 their cities, in whose case, if they did anything wrong, punishments were appointed
 by the law.

But when you were praetor, how could the censor either fear the law, by which he
 was not bound, since he had not been created by the law; or fear your reproof for
 having sold what he had bought of you? Let Metellus now detain my witnesses—let him
 compel others to praise him, as he has attempted in many instances; only let him do
 what he is doing. For whoever was treated by any one with such insult, with so much
 ignominy? Every fifth year a census is taken of all Sicily . A census was taken when Peducaeus was praetor. When the five
 years had elapsed in your praetorship, a census was taken again. The next year
 Lucius Metellus forbids any mention to be made of your census; he says that censors
 must be created afresh; and in the meantime he orders the census of Peducaeus to be
 attended to. If an enemy of yours had done this to you, although the province would
 have borne it with great equanimity, still it would have seemed the severe decision
 of an enemy. A new friend, a voluntary relation did it. For he could not do
 otherwise, if he wished to retain the province in its allegiance, if he wished to
 live himself in safety in the province.

Are you waiting to see what these men also will decide? If he had deprived you of
 your office, he would have treated you with less insult, than when he abrogated and
 annulled the things which you had done in your office. Nor did he behave in this way
 in that matter alone, but he had done the same in many other matters of the greatest
 importance, before I arrived in Sicily . For
 he ordered your friends, the palaestra people, to restore his property to Heraclius
 the Syracusan, and the people of Bidis to restore his property to Epicrates, and
 Appius Claudius his to his ward at Drepanum ; and, if Letilius had not arrived in Sicily with letters a little too soon, in less than
 thirty days Metellus would have annulled your whole three years' praetorship.

And, since I have spoken of that money which the censors
 paid to you for your statue, it seems to me that I ought not to pass over that
 method of raising money, which you exacted from the cities on presence of erecting
 statues. For I see that the sum total of that money is very large, amounting to a
 hundred and twenty thousand sesterces . This much is
 proved by the evidence and letters of the cities. And he admits that, and indeed he
 cannot say otherwise. What sort of conduct then are we to think that which he
 denies, when these actions which he confesses are so infamous? For what do you wish
 to be believed? That all that money was spent in statues?—Suppose it was. Still this
 is by no means to be endured, that the allies should be robbed of so much money, in
 order that statues of a most infamous robber may be placed in every alley, where it
 appears scarcely possible to pass in safety.

But where in the world, or on what statues, was that enormous sum of money spent?
 It will be spent, you will say. Let us, forsooth, wait for the recurrence of that
 regular five years. If in this interval he has not spent it then at last we will
 impeach him for embezzlement in the article of statues. He is brought before the
 court as a criminal on many most important charges. We see that a hundred and twenty
 thousand sesterces have been taken on this one
 account. If you are condemned, you will not, I presume, trouble yourself about
 having that money spent on statues within five years. If you are acquitted, who will
 be so insane as to attack you in five years' time on the subject of the statues,
 after you have escaped from so many and such grave charges? If, therefore, this
 money has not been spent as yet, and if it is evident that it will not be spent, we
 may understand that a plan has been found out by which he may take and appropriate
 to himself a hundred and twenty thousand sesterces 
 at one swoop, and by which others too, if this is sanctioned by you, may take as
 large sums as ever they please on similar grounds; so that we shall appear not to
 deter men from taking money, but, as we approve of some methods of taking money, we
 shall seem rather to be giving decent names to the basest actions.

In truth, suppose, for example, that Caius Verres had demanded a hundred and
 twenty thousand sesterces from the people of
 Centuripa, and had taken this money from them; there would have been no doubt, I
 conceive, that, if that were proved, he must have been condemned.—What then? Suppose
 he demanded three hundred thousand sesterces of the
 same people; and compelled them to give them, and carried them off? Shall he be
 acquitted because it was entered in the accounts that that money was given for
 statues? I think not; unless, indeed, our object is to create, not an unwillingness
 to take money on the part of our magistrates, but a cause for giving it on the part
 of our allies. But if statues are a great delight to any one, and if any one is
 greatly attracted by the honour and glory of having them raised to him, still he
 must lay down these rules; first of all, that he must not take to his own house the
 money given for those purposes; secondly, that there must be some limit to those
 statues; and lastly, that at all events they must not be exacted from unwilling
 people.

And concerning the embezzlement of the money, I ask of you whether the cities
 themselves were accustomed to let out contracts for erecting statues to the man who
 would take the contract on the best terms, or to appoint some surveyor to
 superintend the erection of the statues, or to pay the money to you, or to any one
 whom you appointed? For the statues were erected under the superintendence of those
 men by whom that honour was paid to you—I am glad to hear it; but, if that money was
 paid to Timarchides, cease I beg of you, to pretend that you were desirous of glory
 and of monuments when you are detected is so evident a robbery. What then? Is there to be no limit to statues? But there must be.
 Indeed, consider the matter in this way.

The city of Syracuse (to speak of
 that city in preference to others) gave him a statue;—it is an honour: and gave his
 father one;—a pretty and profitable picture of affection: and gave his son one;—this
 may be endured, for they did not hate the boy: still how often, and for how many
 individuals will you take statues from the Syracusans? You accepted one to be placed
 in the forum. You compelled them to place one in the senate-house. You ordered them
 to contribute money for those statues which were to be erected at Rome . You ordered that the same men should also
 contribute as agriculturists, they did so. You ordered the same men also to pay
 their contribution to the common revenue of Sicily ; even that they did also. When one city contributed money on
 so many different presences, and when the other cities did the same, does not the
 fact itself warn you to think that some bounds must be put to this covetousness? But
 if no city did this of its own accord; if all of them only paid you this money for
 statues because they were induced to do so by your command, by fear, by force, by
 injury; then, O ye immortal gods, can it be doubtful to any one, that, even if any
 one were to establish a law, that it was allowable to accept money for statues,
 still he would also establish one, that at all events it was not allowable to extort
 it?

First, therefore, I will cite the whole of Sicily as a witness on this point; and Sicily declares to me with one voice that an immense sum of money was
 extorted from her by force under the name of providing statues. For the deputations
 of all the cities, in their common petitions—nearly all of which have arisen from
 your injuries,—have inserted this demand also; “that they might not for the future
 promise statues to any one till he had left the province.” There have been many praetors in
 Sicily . Often, in the times of our
 ancestors, the Sicilians have approached the senate; often in the memory of the
 present generation; but it is your praetorship that has introduced and originated a
 new kind of petition.

For what else is so strange, not only in the matter but in the very form of the
 petition? For other points which occur in the same petitions with reference to your
 injuries, are indeed novel, but still they are not urged in a novel manner. The
 Sicilians beg and entreat of the conscript fathers that our magistrates may
 henceforth sell the tenths according to the law of Hiero. You were the first who had
 sold them in a way contrary to that law.—That they may not put a money value on the
 corn which is ordered for the public granary. This, too, is now requested for the
 first time on account of your three denarii: but that kind of petition is not
 unprecedented.—That a charge be not taken against any one in his absence. This has
 arisen from the misfortune of Sthenius, and your tyranny.—I will not enumerate the
 other points. All the demands of the Sicilians are of such a nature that they look
 like charges collected against you alone as a criminal. Still all these, though they
 refer to new injuries, preserve the ordinary form of requests.

But this request about the statues must seem ridiculous to the man who is not
 acquainted with the facts and with the meaning of it; for they entreat that they may
 not be compelled to erect statues;—what then? That they may not be allowed to do
 so;—what does this mean? Do you request of me not to be allowed to do what it
 depends on yourself to do or not? Ask rather that no one may compel you to promise a
 statue, or to erect one against your will. I shall do no good, says he; for they
 will all deny that they compelled me to do so: if you wish for my preservation, put
 this violence on me,—that it may be utterly illegal for me to make such a promise.
 It is from your praetorship that such a request as this has taken its rise; and
 those who employ it, intimate and openly declare that they, entirely against their
 will, contributed money for your statues, being compelled by fear and violence.

Even suppose they did not say this, still, would it not be impossible for you to
 avoid confessing it? See and consider what defence you are going to adopt; for then
 you will understand that you must confess this about the statues. For I am informed that your cause is
 planned out in this way by your advocates, men of great ingenuity, and that you are
 instructed and trained by them in this way; that, as each influential and honourable
 man from the province of Sicily gives an
 energetic testimony against you, as many of the lending Sicilians have already done
 to a great extent, you are immediately to say to your defenders, “That man is an
 enemy of mine because he is an agriculturist. And so, I suppose, you have it in your
 mind to set aside the class of agriculturists, saving that they have come with a
 hostile and inimical disposition towards Verres because he was a little strict in
 collecting the tenths. The agriculturists, then, are all your enemies, all your
 adversaries. There is not one of them who does not wish you dead. Altogether you are
 admirably well off, when that order and class of men which is the most virtuous and
 honourable, by which both the republic in general, and most especially that province
 upheld, as fixedly hostile to you.

However, be it so; another time we will consider of the disposition of the
 agriculturists and of their injuries. For the present I assume, what you grant me,
 that they are most hostile to you. You say, forsooth, on account of the tenths. I
 grant that; I do not inquire whether they are enemies with or without reason. What
 then is the meaning of those gilt equestrian statues which greatly offend the
 feelings and eyes of the Roman people, near the temple of
 Vulcan ? For I see an inscription on them
 stating that the agriculturists had presented one of them. If they gave this statue
 to do you honour, they are not your enemies. Let us believe the witnesses; for then
 they were consulting your honour, now they are regarding their own consciences. But
 if they presented the statues under the compulsion of fear, you must confess that
 you exacted money in the province on account of statues by violence and fear. Choose
 whichever alternative you like.

In truth I would willingly now abandon this charge about the statues, to have you
 admit to me, what would be most honourable to you, that the agriculturists
 contributed this money for a statue to do you honour, of their own free will. Grant
 me this. In a moment you cut from under your feet the principal part of your
 defence. For then you will not be able to say that the agriculturists were angry
 with and enemies to you. O singular cause; O miserable and ruinous defence; for the
 defendant, and he too a defendant who has been praetor in Sicily , to be unwilling to receive an admission from
 his accuser that the agriculturists erected him a statue of their own free will,
 that they have a good opinion of him, that they are his friends, that they desire
 his safety! He is afraid of your believing this, for he is overwhelmed with the
 evidence given against him by the agriculturists.

I will avail myself of what is granted to me; at all events you must judge that
 those men, who, as he himself wishes it to be believed, are most hostile to him, did
 not contribute money for his honour and for his monuments of their own free will.
 And that this may be most easily understood, ask any one you please of the witnesses
 whom I shall produce, who are witnesses from Sicily , whether a Roman citizen or a Sicilian, and one too who
 appears most hostile to you, who says that he has been plundered by you, whether he
 contributed anything in his own name to the statue? You will not find one man to
 deny it In truth they all contributed.

Do you think then that any one will doubt that he who ought to be most hostile to
 you, who has received the severest injuries from you, paid money on account of a
 statue to you because he was compelled by violence and authoritative command, not
 out of kindness and by his own free will? And I have neither counted up, nor been
 able to count, O judges, the amount of this money, which is very large, and which
 has been most shamelessly extorted from unwilling men, so as to estimate how much
 was extorted from agriculturists, how much from traders who trade at Syracuse , at Agrigentum , at Panormus , at Lilybaeum ; since
 you see by even his own confession that it was extorted from most unwilling
 contributors.

I come now to the cities of Sicily , in
 which case it is exceedingly easy to form an opinion of their inclination. Did the
 Sicilians also contribute against their will? It is not probable. In truth it is
 evident that Caius Verres so conducted himself during his praetorship in Sicily , that, as he could not satisfy both parties,
 both the Sicilians and the Romans, he considered rather his duty to our allies, than
 his ambition, which might have prompted him to gratify the citizens. And therefore I
 saw him called in an inscription at Syracuse , not only the patron of that island, but also the saviour of
 it. What a great expression is this! so great that it cannot be expressed by any
 single Latin word. He in truth is a saviour, who has given salvation. In his name
 days of festival are kept—that fine Verrean festival—not as if it was the festival
 of Marcellus, but instead of the Marcellean festival, which they abolished at his
 command. His triumphal arch is in the forum at Syracuse , on which his son stands, naked; and he himself from
 horseback looks down on the province which has been stripped bare by himself. His
 statues are in every place; which seem to show this, that he very nearly erected as
 many statues at Syracuse as he had
 taken away from it. And even at Rome we
 see an inscription in his honour carved at the foot of the statues, in letters of
 the largest size, “that that were given by the community of Sicily .” Why were they given? How can any one be
 induced to believe that such great honours were paid to him by people against their
 will?

Here, too, you must deliberate and consider even much more than you did in the
 case of the agriculturists, what you intend. It is an important matter. Do you wish
 the Sicilians, both in their public and private capacity, to be considered friends
 to you, or enemies? If enemies, what is to become of you? Whither will you free for
 refuge? On what will you depend? Just now you repudiated the greater part of the
 agriculturists, most honourable and wealthy men, both Sicilians and Roman citizens.
 Now, what will you do about the Sicilian cities? Will you say that the Sicilians are
 friendly to you? How can you say so? They who (though they have never done such a
 thing in the instance of any one else before, as to give public evidence against
 him, even though many men who have been praetors in that province have been
 condemned, and only two, who have been prosecuted, have been acquitted)—they, I say,
 who now come with letters, with commissions, with public testimonies against you,
 while, if they were to utter a panegyric on you in behalf of their state, they would
 appear to do so according to their usual custom, rather than because of your
 deserts. When these men make a public complaint of your actions, do they not show
 this that your injuries have been so great that they preferred to depart from their
 ancient habit, rather than not speak of your habits?

You must, therefore, inevitably confess that the Sicilians are hostile to you;
 since they have addressed to the consuls petitions of the gravest moment directed
 against you, and have entreated me to undertake this cause, and the advocacy of
 their safety; since, though they were forbidden to come by the praetor, and hindered
 by four quaestors, they still have thought every one's threats and every danger
 insignificant, in comparison with their safety; since at the former pleading they
 gave their evidence so earnestly and so bitterly, that Hortensius said that Artemo,
 the deputy of Centuripa, end the witness authorized by the public council there, was
 an accuser, not a witness. In truth he, together with Andron, a most honourable and
 trustworthy man, both on account of his virtue and integrity, and also on account of
 his eloquence, was appointed by his fellow-citizens as their deputy in order that he
 might be able to explain in the most intelligible and clear manner the numerous and
 various injuries which they have sustained from Verres. The people of Halesa, of Catana , of Tyndaris , of Enna , of
 Herbita, of Agyrium , of Netum , of Segesta, gave evidence also. It is
 needless to enumerate them all. You know how many gave evidence, and how many things
 they proved at the former pleading. Now both they and the rest shall give their
 evidence.

Every one, in short, shall be made aware of this fact in this cause,—that the
 feelings of the Sicilians are such, that if that man be not punished, they think
 that they must leave their habitations and their homes and depart from Sicily , and flee to some distant land. Will you
 persuade us that these men contributed large sums of money to confer honour and
 dignity on you of their own free will? I suppose, forsooth, they who did not like
 you to remain in safety in your own city, wished to have memorials of your person
 and name in their own cities! The facts show that they wished it. For I have been
 for some time thinking that I was handling the argument about the inclination of the
 Sicilians towards you too tenderly, as to whether they were desirous to erect
 statues to you, or were compelled to do so.

What man ever lived of whom such a thing was heard as has happened to you, that
 his statues in his province, erected in the public places, and some of them even in
 the holy temples, were thrown down by force by the whole population? There have been
 many guilty magistrates in Asia , many in
 Africa , many in Spain , in Gaul , in Sardinia , many in
 Sicily itself, but did we ever hear such
 a thing as this of any of them? It is an unexampled thing, O judges, a sort of
 prodigy amazing the Sicilians, and among all the Greeks. I would not have believed
 that story about the statues, if I had not seen them myself uprooted and lying on
 the ground; because it is a custom among all the Greeks to think that honours paid
 to men by monuments of that sort, are, to some extent, consecrated, and under the
 protection of the gods.

Therefore, when the Rhodians, almost single-handed, carried on the first war
 against Mithridates, and withstood all his power and his most vigorous attacks on
 their walls, and shores, and fleets,—when they, beyond all other nations, were
 enemies to the king; still, even then, at the time of imminent danger to their city,
 they did not touch his statue which was among them in the most frequented place in
 their city. Perhaps there might seem some inconsistency in preserving the effigy and
 image of the man, when they were striving to overthrow the man himself: but still I
 saw, when I was among them, that they had a religious feeling in those matters
 handed down to them from their ancestors, and that they argued in this way;—that as
 to the statue, they regarded the period when it had been erected; but as to the man,
 they regarded the fact of his waging war against them, and being an enemy.
 You see, therefore,
 that the custom and religious feeling of the Greeks, which is accustomed to defend
 the monuments of enemies, even at a time of actual war, could not, even in a time of
 profound peace, protect the statues of a praetor of the Roman people.

The men of Tauromenium which is a
 city in alliance with us, most
 quiet men, who were formerly as far removed as possible from the injuries of our
 magistrates, owing to the protection the treaty was to them; yet even they did not
 hesitate to overturn that man's statue. But when that was removed, they allowed the
 pedestal to remain in the forum, because they thought it would tell more strongly
 against him, if men knew that his statue had been thrown down by the Tauromenians,
 than if they thought that none had ever been erected. The men of Tyndarus threw down
 his statue in the forum; and for the same reason left the horse without a rider. At
 Leontini, even in that miserable and desolate city, his statue in the gymnasium was
 thrown down. For why should I speak of the Syracusans, when that act was not a
 private act of the Syracusans, but was done by them in common with all their
 neighbouring allies, and withal most the whole province? How great a multitude, how
 vast a concourse of men is said to have been present when his statues were pulled
 down and overturned! But where was this done? In the most frequented and sacred
 place of the whole city; before Serapis himself, in the very entrance and vestibule
 of the temple. And if Metellus had not acted with great vigour, and by his
 authority, and by a positive edict forbidden it, there would not have been a trace
 of a statue of that man left in all Sicily .

And I am not afraid of any of these things seeming to have
 been done in consequence of my arrival, much less in consequence of my instigation.
 All those things were done, not only before I arrived in Sicily , but before he reached Italy . While I was in Sicily , no statue was thrown down. Hear now what was done after I
 departed from thence. The
 senate of Centuripa decreed, and the people ordered, that the quaestors should issue
 a contract for taking down whatever statues there were of Caius Verres himself, of
 his father, and of his son; and that while such demolition was being executed, there
 should be not less than thirty senators present. Remark the soberness and dignity of
 that city. They neither chose that those statues should remain in their city which
 they themselves had given against their will, under the pressure of authority and
 violence; nor the statues of that man, against whom they themselves (a thing which
 they never did before) had sent by a public vote commissions and deputies, with the
 most weighty testimony, to Rome . And they
 thought that it would be a more important thing if it seemed to have been done by
 public authority, than by the violence of the multitude.

When, in pursuance of this design, the people of Centuripa had publicly destroyed
 his statues, Metellus hears of it. He is very indignant; he summons before him the
 magistrates of Centuripa and the ten principal citizens. He threatens them with
 measures of great severity, if they do not replace the statues. They report the
 matter to the senate. The statues, which could do no good to his cause, are
 replaced; the decrees of the people of Centuripa, which had been passed concerning
 the statues, are not taken away. Here I can excuse some of the actors. I cannot at
 all excuse Metellus, a wise man, if he acts foolishly. What? did he think it would
 look like a crime in Verres, if his statues were thrown down, a thing which is often
 done by the wind, or by some accident? There could be in such a fact as that no
 charge against the man, no reproof of him Whence, then, does the charge and
 accusation arise? From the intention and will of the people by whom it was
 caused.

I, if Metellus had not compelled the men of Centuripa to replace the statues,
 should say, “See, O judges, what exceeding and bitter indignation the injuries of
 that man have implanted in the minds of our allies and friends; when that most
 friendly and faithful city of Centuripa, which is, connected with the Roman people
 by so many reciprocal good offices, that it has not only always loved our republic,
 but has also shown its attachment to the very name of Roman in the person of every
 private individual, has decided by public resolution and by the public authority
 that the statues of Caius Verres ought not to exist in it.” I should recite the
 decrees of the people of Centuripa; I should extol that city, as with the greatest
 truth I might; I should relate that ten thousand of those citizens, the bravest and
 most faithful of our allies,—that every one of the whole people resolved, that there
 ought to be no monument of that man in their city. I should say this if Metellus had
 not replaced the statues.

I should now wish to ask of Metellus himself, whether by his power and authority
 he has at all weakened my speech? I think the very same language is still
 appropriate. For, even if the statues were ever so much thrown down, I could not
 show them to you on the ground. This only statement could I use, that so wise a city
 had decided that the statues of Caius Verres ought to be demolished. And this
 argument Metellus has not taken from me. He has even given me this additional one;
 he has enabled me to complain, if I thought fit, that authority is exercised over
 our friends and allies with so much injustice, that, even in the services they do
 people, they are not allowed to use their own unbiased judgment; he has enabled me
 to entreat you to form your conjectures, how you suppose Lucius Metellus behaved to
 me in those matters in which he was able to injure me, when he behaved with such
 palpable partiality in this one in which he could be no hindrance to me. But I am
 not angry with Metellus, nor do I wish to rob him of his excuse which he puts forth
 to every one, that he did nothing spitefully nor with any especial design.

Now, therefore, it is so evident that you cannot deny it, that no statue was given
 to you with the good will of any one; no money on account of statues, that was not
 squeezed out and extorted by force. And, in making that charge, I do not wish that
 alone to be understood, that you get money to the amount of a hundred and twenty
 thousand sesterces ; but much more do I wish to have
 this point seen clearly, which was proved at the same time, namely, how great both
 is and was the hatred borne to you by the agriculturists, and by all the Sicilians.
 And as to this point, what your defence is to be I cannot guess.—

“Yes, the Sicilians hate me, because I did a great deal for the sake of the Roman
 citizens.” But they too are most bitter against you, and most hostile. “I have the
 Roman citizens for my enemies, because I defended the interests and rights of the
 allies.” But the allies complain that they were considered and treated by you as
 enemies. “The agriculturists are hostile to me on account of the tenths.” Well; they
 who cultivate land untaxed and free from this impost; why do they hate you? why do
 the men of Halesa, of Centuripa, of Segesta, of Halicya hate you? What race of men,
 what number of men, what rank of men can you name that does not hate you, whether
 they be Roman citizens or Sicilians? So that even if I could not give a reason for
 their hating you, still I should think that the fact ought to be mentioned and that
 you also O judges, ought to hate the man whom all men hate.

Will you dare to say, either that the agriculturists, that all the Sicilians, in
 short, think well of you, or that it has nothing to do with the subject what they
 think? You will not dare to say this, nor if you were to wish to do so would you be
 allowed. For those equestrian statues erected by the Sicilians, whom you affect to
 despise, and by the agriculturists, deprive you of the power of saying that; the
 statues, I mean, which a little while before you came to the city you ordered to be
 erected and to have inscriptions put upon them, to serve as a check to the
 inclinations of all your enemies and accusers.

For who would be troublesome to you, or who would dare to bring an action against
 you, when he saw statues erected to you by traders, by agriculturists, by the common
 voice of all Sicily ? What other class of
 men is there in that province?—None. Therefore he is not only loved, but even
 honored by the whole province, and also by each separate portion of it, according to
 their class. Who will dare to touch this man? Can you then say that the evidence of
 agriculturists, of traders, and of all the Sicilians against you, ought to be no
 objection to you, when you hoped to be able to extinguish all your unpopularity and
 infamy by placing their names in an inscription on your statues? Or, if you
 attempted to add honour to your statues by their authority, shall I not be able to
 corroborate my argument by the dignity of those same men?

Unless, perchance, in that matter, some little hope still consoles you, because
 you were popular among the farmers of the revenues: but I have taken care, through
 my diligence, that that popularity should not serve,—you have contrived, by your own
 wisdom, to show that it ought to be, an injury to you. Listen, O judges, to the
 whole affair in a few words. In the collecting the tax on pasture lands in Sicily there is a sub-collector of the name of
 Lucius Carpinatius, who both for the sake of his own profit, and perhaps because he
 thought it for the interest of his partners, cultivated the favour of Verres to the
 neglect of everything else. He, while he was attending the praetor about all the
 markets, and never leaving him, had got into such familiarity with, and aptitude at
 the practice of selling Verres's decrees and decisions, and managing his other
 concerns, that he was considered almost a second Timarchides.

He was in one respect still more important; because he also lent money at usury to
 those who were purchasing anything of the praetor. And this usury, O judges, was
 such that even the profit from the other transactions was inferior to the gain
 obtained by it. For the money which he entered as paid to those with whom he was
 dealing, he entered also under the name of Verres's secretary, or of Timarchides, or
 even under Verres's own name, as received from them. And besides that, he lent other
 large sums belonging to Verres, of which he made no entry at all, in his own name.

Originally this Carpinatius, before he had become so intimate with Verres, had
 often written letters to the shareholders about his unjust actions. But Canuleius,
 who had an agency at Syracuse , in the
 harbour, had also written accounts to his shareholders of many of Verres's
 robberies, giving instances, especially, concerning things which had been exported
 from Syracuse without paying the
 harbour dues. But the same company was farming both the harbour dues and the taxes
 on pasture land. And thus it happened that there were many things which we could
 state and produce against Verres from the letters of that company.

But it happened that Carpinatius, who had by this time become connected with him
 by the greatest intimacy, and also by community of interests, afterwards sent
 frequent letters to his partners, speaking of his exceeding kindness, and of his
 services to their common property. And in truth, as he was used to do and to decree
 everything which Carpinatius requested him, Carpinatius also began to write still
 more flaming accounts to his shareholders, in order, if possible, utterly to efface
 the recollection of all that he had written before. But at last, when Verres was
 departing, he sent letters to them, to beg them to go out in crowds to meet him and
 to give him thanks; and to promise zealously that they would do whatever he desired
 them. And the shareholders did so, according to the old custom of farmers; not
 because they thought him deserving of any honour, but because they thought it was
 for their own interest to be thought to remember kindness, and to be grateful for
 it. They expressed their thanks to him, and said that Carpinatius had often sent
 letters to them mentioning his good offices.

When he had made answer that he had done those things gladly, and had greatly
 extolled the services of Carpinatius, he charges a friend of his, who at that time
 was the chief collector of that company, to take care diligently, and to make sure
 that there was nothing in any of the letters of any of the partners which could tell
 against his safety and reputation. Accordingly he, having got rid of the main body
 of the shareholders, summons the collectors of the tenths, and communicates the
 business to them. They resolve and determine that those letters in which any attack
 was made on the character of Caius Verres shall be removed, and that care he taken
 that that business shall not by any possibility be any injury to Caius Verres.

If I prove that the collectors of the truths passed this resolution,—if I make it
 evident that, according to this decree, the letters were removed, what more would
 you wait for? Can I produce to you any affair more absolutely decided? Can I bring
 before your tribunal any criminal more fully condemned? But condemned by whose
 judgment? By that, forsooth, of those men whom they who wish for severe tribunals
 think ought to decide on causes,—by the judgment of the farmers, whom the people is
 now demanding to have for judges, and concerning whom, that we may have them for
 judges, we at this moment see a law proposed, not by a man of our body, not by a man
 born of the equestrian order, not by a man of the noblest birth:

the collectors of the tenths, that is to say, the chiefs, and, as it were, the
 senators of the farmers, voted that these letters should be removed out of sight. I
 have men, who were present, whom I can produce, to whom I will entrust this proof,
 most honourable and wealthy men, the very chief of the equestrian order, on whose
 high credit the very speech and cause of the man who has proposed this law mainly
 relies. They shall come before you; they shall say what they deter mined. Indeed, if
 I know the men properly, they will not speak falsely For they were able, indeed, to
 put letters to their community out of sight; they have not been able to put out of
 sight their own good faith and conscientiousness. Therefore the Roman knights, who
 condemned you by their judgment, have not been willing to be condemned in the
 judgment of those judges. Do you now consider whether you prefer to follow their
 decision or their inclination.

But see now, how far the zeal of your friends, your own devices, and the
 inclination of those partners aid you. I will speak a little more openly; for I am
 not afraid of any one thinking that I am saying this in the spirit of an accuser
 rather than with proper freedom. If the collectors had not removed those letters
 according to the resolution of the farmers of the tenths, I could only say against
 you what I had found in those letters; but now that the resolution has been passed,
 and the letters have been removed, I may say whatever I can, and the judge may
 suspect whatever he chooses. I say that you exported from Syracuse an immense weight of gold, of silver,
 of ivory, of purple; much cloth from Melita , much embroidered stuff, much furniture of Delos , many Corinthian vessels, a great quantity
 of corn, an immense load of honey; and that on account of these things, because no
 port dues were paid on them, Lucius Canuleius, who was the agent in the harbour,
 sent letters to his partners. Does this appear a
 sufficiently grave charge?

None, I think, can be graver. What will Hortensius say in defence? Will he demand
 that I produce the letters of Canuleius? Will he say that a charge of this sort is
 worthless unless it be supported by letters? I shall cry out that the letters have
 been put out of the way; that by a resolution of the shareholders the proofs and
 evidences of his thefts have been taken from me. He must either contend that this
 has not been done, or he must bear the brunt of all my weapons. Do you deny that
 this was done? I am glad to hear that defence. I descend into the arena; for equal
 terms and an equal contest are before us. I will produce witnesses, and I will
 produce many at the same time; since they were together when this took place, they
 shall be together now also. When they are examined, let them be bound not only by
 the obligation of their oath and regard for their character, but also by a common
 consciousness of the truth.

If it be proved that this did take place as I say it did, will you be able to say,
 O Hortensius, that there was nothing in those letters to hurt Verres? You not only
 will not say so, but you will not even be able to say this,—that there was not as
 much in them as I say there was. This then is what you have brought about by your
 wisdom and by your interest; that, as I said a little while ago, you have given me
 the greatest licence for accusing, and he judges the most ample liberty to believe
 anything.

But though this be the case, still I will invent nothing. I will recollect that I
 have not taken a criminal to accuse, but that I have received clients to defend; and
 that you ought to hear the cause not as it might be produced by me, but as it has
 been brought to me; that I shall satisfy the Sicilians, if I diligently set forth
 what I have known myself in Sicily , and
 what I have heard from them; that I shall satisfy the Roman people, if I fear
 neither the violence nor the influence of any one; that I shall satisfy you, if by
 my good faith and diligence I give you an opportunity of deciding correctly and
 honestly; that I shall satisfy myself, if I do not depart a hair's breadth from that
 course of life which I have proposed to myself.

Wherefore, you have no ground to fear that I will invent anything against you. You
 have cause even to be glad; for I shall pass over many things which I know to have
 been done by you, because they are either too infamous, or scarcely credible. I will
 only discuss this whole affair of this society. That you may now hear the truth, I
 will ask, Was such a resolution passed? When I have ascertained that, I will ask,
 Have the letters been removed? When that too, is proved , you will understand the
 matter, even if I say nothing. If they who passed this resolution for his
 sake—namely, the Roman knights—were now also judges in his case, they would beyond
 all question condemn that man, concerning whom they knew that letters which laid
 bare his robberies had been sent to themselves, and had been removed by their own
 resolution. He, therefore, who must have been condemned by those Roman knights who
 desire everything to turn out for his interest, and who have been most kindly
 treated by him, can he, O judges, by any possible means or contrivance be acquitted
 by you?

And that you may not suppose that those things which have
 been removed out of the way, and taken from you, were all so carefully hidden, and
 kept so secretly, that with all the diligence which I am aware is universally
 expected of me nothing concerning them has been able to be arrived at or discovered,
 I must tell you that, whatever could by any means or contrivance be found out, has
 been found out, O judges. You shall see in a moment the man detected in the very
 act; for as I have spent a great part of my life in attending to the causes of
 farmers, and have paid great attention to that body, I think that I am sufficiently
 acquainted with their customs by experience and by intercourse with them.

Therefore, when I ascertained that the letters of the company were removed out of
 the way, I made a calculation of the years that that man had been in Sicily ; then I inquired (what was exceedingly easy
 to discover) who during those years had been the collectors of that company,—in
 whose care the records had been. For I was aware that it was the custom of the
 collectors who kept the records, when they gave them up to the new collector, to
 retain copies of the documents themselves. And therefore I went in the first place
 to Lucius Vibius, a Roman knight, a man of the highest consideration, who, I
 ascertained, had been collector that very year about which I particularly had to
 inquire. I came upon the man unexpectedly when he was thinking of other things. I
 investigated what I could, and inquired into everything. I found only two small
 books, which had been sent by Lucius Canuleius to the shareholders from the harbour
 at Syracuse ; in which there was
 entered an account of many months, and of things exported in Verres's name without
 having paid harbour dues. These I sealed up immediately.

These were documents of that sort which of all the papers of the company I was most
 anxious to find; but still I only found enough, O judges, to produce to you as a
 sample, as it were. But still, whatever is in these books, however unimportant it
 may seem to be, will at all events be undeniable; and by this you will be able to
 form your conjectures as to the rest. Read for me, I beg, this first book, and then
 the other. [The books of Canuleius are read.] I do not ask now whence you got those
 four hundred jars of honey, or such quantities of Maltese cloth, or fifty cushions
 for sofas or so many candelabra;—I do not, I say, inquire at present where you got
 these things; but, how you could want such a quantity of them, that I do ask. I say
 nothing about the honey; but what could you want with so many Maltese garments? as
 if you were going to dress all your friends' wives;—or with so many sofa cushions?
 as if you were going to furnish all their villas.

As in these little books there are only the accounts of a few months, conjecture
 in your minds what they must have been for the whole three years. This is what I
 contend for. From these small books found in the house of one collector of the
 company, you can form some conjecture how great a robber that man was in that
 province; what a number of desires, what different ones, what countless ones he
 indulged; what immense sums he made not only in money, but invested also in articles
 of this sort; which shall be detailed to you more fully another time. At present
 listen to this.

By these exportations, of which the list was read to you, he writes that the
 shareholders had lost sixty thousand sesterces by
 the five per cent due on them as harbour dues at Syracuse . In a few months, therefore, as these little insignificant
 books show, things were stolen by the praetor and exported from one single town of
 the value of twelve hundred thousand sesterces .
 Think now, as the island is one which is accessible by sea on all sides, what you
 can suppose was exported from other places? from Agrigentum , from Lilybaeum ,
 from Panormus , from Thermae, from
 Halesa, from Catina , from the other towns?
 And what from Messana ? the place which he
 thought safe for his purpose above all others,—where he was always easy and
 comfortable in his mind, because he had selected the Mamertines as men to whom he
 could send everything which was either to be preserved carefully, or exported
 secretly. After these books had been found, the rest were removed and concealed more
 carefully; but we, that all men may see that we are acting without any ulterior
 motive, are content with these books which we have produced.

Now we will return to the accounts of the society of money received and paid,
 which they could not possibly remove honestly, and to your friend Carpinatius. We
 inspected at Syracuse accounts of the
 company made up by Carpinatius, which showed by many items that many of the men who
 had paid money to Verres, had borrowed it of Carpinatius. That will be clearer than
 daylight to you, O judges, when I produce the very men who paid the money; for you
 will see that the times at which, as they were in danger, they bought themselves
 off, agree with the records of the company not only as to the years, but even as to
 the months.

While we were examining this matter thoroughly, and
 holding the documents actually in our hands, we see on a sudden erasures of such a
 sort as to appear to be fresh wounds inflicted on papers. Immediately, having a
 suspicion of something wrong, we bent our eyes and attention on the names
 themselves. Money was entered as having been received from Caius Verrutius the son
 of Caius, in such a way that the letters had been let stand down to the second R,
 all the rest was an erasure. A second, a third, a fourth—there were a great many
 names in the same state. As the matter was plain, so also was the abominable and
 scandalous worthlessness of the accounts. We began to inquire of Carpinatius who
 that Verrutius was, with whom he had such extensive pecuniary dealings. The man
 began to hesitate, to look away, to colour. Because there is a provision made by law
 with respect to the accounts of the farmers, forbidding their being taken to
 Rome ; in order that the matter might be
 as clear and as completely proved as possible, I summon Carpinatius before the
 tribunal of Metellus and produce the accounts of the company in the forum. There is
 a great rush of people to the place; and as the partnership existing between
 Carpinatius and that praetor, and his usury, were well known, all people were
 watching with the most eager expectation to see what was contained in the accounts

I bring the matter before Metellus; I state to him that I have seen the accounts
 of the shareholders, that in these there is a long account of one Caius Verrutius
 made up of many items, and that I saw, by a computation of the years and months,
 that this Verrutius had had no account at all with Carpinatius, either before the
 arrival of Caius Verres, or after his departure. I demand that Carpinatius shall
 give me an answer who that Verrutius is; whether he is a merchant, or a broker, or
 an agriculturist, or a grazier; whether he is in Sicily , or whether he has now left it. All who were in the court
 cried out at once that there had never been any one in Sicily of the name of Verrutius. I began to press the man to answer
 me who he was, where he was, whence he came; why the servant of the company who made
 up the accounts always made a blunder in the name of Verrutius at the same place?

And I made this demand, not because I thought it of any consequence that he should
 be compelled to answer me these things against his will, but that the robberies of
 one, the dishonesty of the other, and the audacity of both might be made evident to
 all the world. And so I leave him in the court, dumb from fear and the consciousness
 of his crimes, terrified out of his wits, and almost frightened to death; I take a
 copy of the accounts in the forum, with a great crowd of men standing round me; the
 most eminent men in the assembly are employed in making the copy; the letters and
 the erasures are faithfully copied and imitated, and transferred from the accounts
 into books.

The copy was examined and compared with the original with
 the greatest care and diligence, and then sealed up by most honourable men. If
 Carpinatius would not answer me then, do you, O Verres, answer me now, who you
 imagine this Verrutius, who must almost be one of your own family, to be. It is
 quite impossible that you should not have known a man in your own province, who, I
 see, was in Sicily while you were praetor,
 and who, I perceive from the accounts themselves, was a very wealthy man. And now,
 that this may not be longer in obscurity, advance into the middle, open the volume, the copy of the accounts,
 so that every one may be able to see now, not the traces only of that man's avarice,
 but the very bed in which it lay.

You see the word Verrutius ?—You see the first
 letters untouched? you see the last part of the name, the tail of Verres, smothered
 in the erasure, as in the mud. The original accounts, O judges, are in exactly the
 same state as this copy.—What are you waiting for? What more do you want? You,
 Verres, why are you sitting there? Why do you delay? for either you must show us
 Verrutius, or confess that you yourself are Verrutius. The ancient orators are
 extolled, the Crassi and Antonii, because they had the skill to efface the
 impression made by an accusation with great clearness, and to defend the causes of
 accused persons with eloquence. It was not, forsooth, in ability only that they
 surpassed those who are now employed here as counsel, but also in good fortune. No
 one, in those times, committed such crimes as to leave no room for any defence; no
 one lived in such a manner that no part of his life was free from the most extreme
 infamy; no one was detected in such manifest guilt, that, shameless as he had been
 in the action, he seemed still more shameless if he denied it.

But now what can Hortensius do? Can he argue against the
 charges of avarice by panegyrics on his client's economy? He is defending a man
 thoroughly profligate, thoroughly licentious, thoroughly wicked. Can he lead your
 attention away from this infamy and profligacy of his, and turn them into some other
 direction by a mention of his bravery? But a man more inactive, more lazy, one who
 is more a man among women, a debauched woman among men, cannot be found.—But his
 manners are affable. Who is more obstinate more rude? more arrogant?—But still all
 this is without any injury to any one. Who has ever been more furious, more
 treacherous, and more cruel? With such a defendant and such a cause, what could all
 the Crassus's and Antonius's in the world do? This is all they would do, as I think,
 O Hortensius; they would have nothing to do with the cause at all, lest by contact
 with the impudence of another they might lose their own characters for virtue. For
 they come to plead causes free and unshackled, so as not, if they did not choose to
 act shamelessly in defending people, to be thought ungrateful for abandoning
 them.

Every man, O judges, who, without being prompted by any enmity, or stung by any
 private injury, or tempted by any reward, prosecutes another for the good of the
 republic, ought to consider, not only how great a burden he is liking upon himself
 at the time, but also how much trouble he is courting for the remainder of his life. For he imposes on himself a law of innocence, of
 moderation, and of all virtues, who demands from another an account of his life; and
 he does so the more if, as I said before, he does this being urges by no other
 motive except a desire for the common good.

For if any one assumes to himself to correct the manners of others, and to reprove
 their faults, who will pardon him, if he himself turn aside in any particular from
 the strict line of duty? Wherefore, a citizen of this sort is the more to he praised
 and beloved by all men for this reason also,—that he does not only remove a
 worthless citizen from the republic, but he also promises and binds himself to be
 such a man as to be compelled, not only by an ordinary inclination to virtue and
 duty, but by even some more unavoidable principle, to live virtuously and
 honourably.

And, therefore, O judges, that most illustrious and most eloquent man, Lucius
 Crassus, was often heard to say that he did not repent of anything so much as having
 ever proceeded against Caius Carbo: for by so doing he had his inclination as to
 everything less uncontrolled, and he thought, too, that his way of life was remarked
 by more people than he liked. And he, fortified as he was by the protection of his
 own genius and fortune, was yet hampered by this anxiety which he had brought upon
 himself, before his judgment was fully formed, at his entrance into life; on which
 account virtue and integrity is less, looked for from those who undertake this
 business as young men, than from those who do so at a riper age; for they, for the
 sake of credit and ostentation, become accusers of others before they have had time
 to take notice how much more free the life of those who have accused no one is. We
 who have already shown both what we could do, and what judgment we had, unless we
 could easily restrain our desires, should never, of our own accord, deprive
 ourselves of all liberty and freedom in our way of life.

And I have a greater burden on me than those who have accused other men, (if that
 deserve to be called a burden which you bear with pleasure and delight,)—but still I
 have in one respect undertaken a greater burden than others who have done the same
 thing, because all men are required to abstain most especially from those vices for
 which they have reproved another. Have you accused any thief or rapacious man? You
 must for ever avoid all suspicion of avarice. Have you prosecuted any spiteful or
 cruel man? You must for ever take care not to appear in any matter the least harsh
 or severe. A seducer? an adulterer? You must, take care most diligently that no
 trace of licentiousness be ever seen in your conduct. In short, everything which you
 have impeached in another must be earnestly avoided by you your self. In truth, not
 only no accuser, but no reprover even can be endured, who is himself detected in the
 vice which he reproves in another.

I, in the case of one man, am finding fault with every vice which can exist in a
 wicked and abandoned man. I say that there is no indication of lust, of wickedness,
 of audacity, which you cannot see clearly in the life of that one man. In the case
 of this criminal, I, O judges, establish this law against myself; that I must so
 live as to appear to be, and always to have been, utterly unlike that man, not only
 in all my actions and words, but even in that arrogance and haughtiness of
 countenance and eyes which you see before you. I will bear without uneasiness, O
 judges, that that course of life which was previously agreeable to me of my own
 accord, shall now, by the law and conditions I hare laid down for myself, become
 necessary for me.

And in the case of this man you often, O Hortensius, are asking me, under the
 pressure of what enmity or what injury I have come forward to accuse him. I omit all
 mention of my duty, and of my connection with the Sicilians; I answer you as to the
 point of enmity. Do you think there is any greater enmity than that arising from the
 opposite opinions of men, and the contrariety of their wishes and inclinations? Can
 he who thinks good faith the holiest thing in life avoid being an enemy to that man
 who, as quaestor, dared to despoil, to desert, to betray, and to attack his consul,
 whose counsels he had shared, whose money he had received, with all whose business
 affairs he had been entrusted? Can he who reverences modesty and chastity behold
 with equanimity the daily adulteries, the dissolute manners of that man, the
 domestic pandering to his passions? Can he who wishes to pay due honours to the
 immortal gods, by any means avoid being an enemy to that man who has plundered all
 the temples, who has dared to commit his robberies even on the track of the wheels
 of the sacred car? Must not he who thinks that all
 men ought to live under equal laws, be very hostile to you, when he considers the
 variety and caprice of your decrees? Must not he who grieves at the injuries of the
 allies and the distresses of the provinces be excited against you by the plundering
 of Asia , the harassing of Pamphylia , the miserable state and the agony of
 Sicily ? Ought not he who desires the
 rights and the liberty of the Roman citizens to be held sacred among all men,—to be
 even more than an enemy to you, when here collects your scourgings, your executions,
 your crosses erected for the punishment of Roman citizens?

Or if he had in any particular made a decree contrary to my interest unjustly,
 would you then think that I was fairly an enemy to him; but now that he has acted
 contrary to the interests, and property, and advantage, and inclination, and welfare
 of all good men, do you ask why I am an enemy to a man towards whom the whole Roman
 people is hostile? I, who above all other men ought to undertake, to gratify the
 desires of the Roman people, even a greater burden and duty than my strength perhaps
 is equal to. What? cannot
 even those matters, which seem more trifling, move any one's mind,—that the
 worthlessness and audacity of that man should have a more easy access to your own
 friendship, O Hortensius, and to that of other great and noble men, than the virtue
 and integrity of any one of us? You hate the industry of new men; you despise their
 economy; you scorn their modesty; you wish their talents and virtues to be depressed
 and extinguished.

You are fond of Verres: I suppose so. If you are not gratified with his virtue,
 and his innocence, and his industry, and his modesty, and his chastity, at least you
 are transported at his conversation, his accomplishments, and his high breeding. He
 has no such gifts; but, on the contrary, all his qualities are stained with the most
 extreme disgrace and infamy, with most extraordinary stupidity and boorishness. If
 any man's house is open to this man, do you think it is open, or rather that it is
 yawning and begging something? He is a favourite of your factors, of your valets.
 Your freedmen, your slaves, your housemaids, are in love with him. He, when he
 calls, is introduced out of his turn; he alone is admitted, while others, often most
 virtuous men, are excluded. From which it is very easily understood that those
 people are the most dear to you who have lived in such a manner that without your
 protection they cannot be safe.

What? do you think this can be endurable to any one,—that we should live on
 slender incomes in such a way as not even to wish to acquire anything more; that we
 should be content with maintaining our dignity, and the goodwill of the Roman
 people, not by wealth, but by virtue; but that that man having robbed every one on
 all sides, and having escaped with impunity, should live, in prosperity and
 abundance? that all your banquets should be decorated with his plate, your forum and
 hall of assembly with his statues and pictures? especially when, through your own
 valour, you are rich in all such trophies? That it should be Verres who adorns your
 villas with his spoils? That it should be Verres who is vying with Lucius Mummius:
 so that the one appears to have laid waste more cities of the allies, than the other
 overthrew belonging to the enemy? That the one, unassisted, seems to have adorned
 more villas with the decorations of temples, than the other decorated-temples with
 the spoils of the enemy? And shall he be dearer to you, in order that others may
 more willingly become subservient to your covetousness at their own risk?

But these topics shall be mentioned at another time, and they have already been
 mentioned elsewhere. Let us proceed to the other matters, after we have in a few
 words, O judges, begged your favourable construction. All through our former speech
 we had your attention very carefully given to us. It was very pleasing to us; but it
 will be far more pleasing, if you will be so kind as to attend to what follows;
 because in all the things which were said before, there was some pleasure arising
 from the very variety and novelty of the subjects and of the charges. Now we are
 going to discuss the affair of corn; which indeed in the greatness of the iniquity
 exceeds nearly all the other charges, but will have far less variety and
 agreeableness in the discussion. But it is quite worthy of your authority and
 wisdom, O judges, in the matter of careful hearing, to give no less weight to
 conscientiousness in the discharge of your duties, than to pleasure.

I, inquiring into this charge respecting the corn, keep this in view, O judges,
 that you are going to inquire into the estates and fortunes of all the
 Sicilians—into the property of all the Roman citizens who cultivate land in
 Sicily —into the revenues handed down to
 you by your ancestors—into the life and sustenance of the Roman people. And if these
 matters appear to you important—yes, and most important,—do not be weary if they are
 pressed upon you from various points of view, and at some length. It cannot escape
 the notice of any one of you, O judges, that all the advantage and desirableness of
 Sicily , which is in any way connected
 with the convenience of the Roman people, consists mainly in its corn; for in other
 respects we are indeed assisted by that province, but as to this article, we are fed
 and supported by it.

The case, O judges, will be divided under three heads in my accusation: for,
 first, I shall speak of the collectors of the tenths; secondly, of the corn which
 has been bought; thirdly, of that which has been valued. There is, O judges, this difference
 between Sicily and other provinces, in the matter of tribute derived from the lands;
 that in the other provinces, either the tribute imposed is of a fixed amount, which
 is called stipendiarium , as in the case of the
 Spaniards and most of the Carthaginian provinces, being a sort of reward of victory,
 and penalty for war; or else a contract exists between the state and the farmers,
 settled by the censor, as is the case in Asia , by the Sempronian law. But the cities in Sicily were received into our friendship and
 alliance, retaining the same laws which they had before, and that being subject to
 the Roman people on the same conditions as they had formerly been subject to their
 own princes.

Very few cities of Sicily were subdued in
 war by our ancestors, and even in the case of those which were, though their land
 was made the public domain of the Roman people, still it was afterwards restored to
 them. That domain is regularly let out to farmers by the censors. There are two
 federate cities, whose tenths are not put up to auction; the city of the Mamertines
 and Taurominium. Besides these, there are five cities without any treaty, free and
 enfranchised; Centuripa, Halesa, Segesta, Halicya, and Panormus . All the land of the other states of
 Sicily is subject to the payment of
 tenths; and was so, before the sovereignty of the Roman people, by the will and laws
 of the Sicilians themselves.

See now the wisdom of our ancestors, who, when they had added Sicily , so valuable an assistant both in war and
 peace, to the republic, were so careful to defend the Sicilians and to retain them
 in their allegiance, that they not only imposed no new tax upon their lands, but did
 not even alter the law of putting up for sale the contracts of the farmers of the
 tenths, or the time or place of selling them; so that they were to put them up for
 sale at the regular time of year, at the same place, in Sicily ,—in short, in every respect as the law of Hiero directed; they
 permitted them still to manage their own affairs, and were not willing that their
 minds should be disturbed even by a new name to a law, much less by an actual new
 law.

And so that resolved that the farming of the tenth should always be put up to
 auction according to the law of Hiero, in order that the discharge of that office
 might be the more agreeable if, though the supreme power was changed, still, not
 only the laws of that king who was very dear to the Sicilians, but his name also
 remained in force among them. This law the Sicilians always used before Verres was
 praetor. He first dared to root up and alter the established usages of them all,
 their customs which had been handed down to them from their ancestors, the
 conditions of their friendship with us, and the rights secured to them by our
 alliance.

And in this, this is the first thing I object to and accuse you for, that in a
 custom of such long standing, and so thoroughly established, you made any innovation
 at all. Have you ever gained anything by this genius of yours? Were you superior in
 prudence and wisdom to so many wise and illustrious men who governed that province
 before you? That is your renown; this praise is due to your genius and diligence. I
 admit and grant this to you. I do know that, at Rome , when you were praetor, you did transfer by your edict the
 possession of inheritance from the children to strangers, from the first heirs to
 the second, from the laws to your own licentious covetousness. I do know that you
 corrected the edicts of all your predecessors, and gave possession of inheritance
 not according to the evidence of those who produced the will, but according to
 theirs who said that a will had been made. And I do know too that those new
 practices, first brought forward and invented by you, were a very great profit to
 you. I recollect, moreover, that you also abrogated and altered the laws of the
 censors about the keeping the public buildings in repair; so that he might not take
 the contract to whom the care of the building belonged; so that his guardians and
 relations might not consult the advantage, of their ward so as to prevent his being
 stripped of all his property; that you appointed a very limited time for the work,
 in order to exclude others from the business; but that with respect to the
 contractor you favoured, you did not observe any fixed time at all.

So that I do not marvel at your having established a new law in the matter of the
 tenths you, a man so wise, so thoroughly practiced in praetorian edicts and
 censorian laws. I do not wonder, I say, at your having invented something; but I do
 blame you, I do impeach you, for having of your own accord, without any command from
 the people, without the authority of the senate, changed the laws of the province of
 Sicily .

The senate permitted Lucius Octavius and Caius Cotta, the consuls, to put up to
 auction at Rome the tenths of wine, and
 oil, and of pulse, which before your time the quaestors had been in the habit of
 putting up in Sicily ; and to establish any
 law with respect to those articles which they might think fit. When the contract was
 offered for sale, the farmers begged them to add some clauses to the law, and yet
 not to depart from the other laws of the censors. A man opposed this, who by
 accident was at Rome at that time; your
 host,—your host, and intimate friend, I say, O Verres,—Sthenius, of Thermae, who is
 here present The consuls examined into the matter. When they had summoned many of
 the principal and most honourable men of the state to form a council on the subject;
 according to the opinion of that council they gave notice that they should put the
 tenths up to auction according to the law of Hiero.

Was it not so? Men of the greatest wisdom, invested with the supreme authority, to
 whom the senate had given the whole power of making laws respecting the letting out
 the farming of the tributes, (and this power had been ratified by the people, while
 only one Sicilian objected to it,) would not alter the name of the law of Hiero,
 even when the measure would have been accompanied by an augmentation of the revenue;
 but you, a man of no wisdom, of no authority, without any order from people or
 senate, while all Sicily objected,
 abrogated the whole law of Hiero, to the greatest injury and even destruction of the
 revenue.

But what law is this, O judges, which he amends, or rather totally abrogates? A
 law framed with the greatest acuteness and the greatest diligence, which gives up
 the cultivator of the land to the collector of the tenths, guarded by so many
 securities, that neither in the corn fields, nor on the threshing floors, nor in the
 barns, nor while removing his corn privately, nor while carrying it away openly, can
 the cultivator defraud the collector of one single grain without the severest
 punishment. The law has been framed with such care, that it is plain that a man
 framed it who had no other revenues; with such acuteness that it was plain that he
 was a Sicilian; with such severity, that he was evidently a tyrant: by this law,
 however, cultivating the land was an advantageous trade for the Sicilian; for the
 laws for the collectors of the tenths were also drawn up so carefully that it is not
 possible for more than the tenth to be extorted from the cultivator against his
 will.

And though all these things were settled in this way, after so many years and even
 ages, Verres was found not only to change, but entirely to overturn them, and to
 convert to purposes of his own most infamous profit those regulations which had long
 ago been instituted and established for the safety of the allies and the benefit of
 the republic. In the first instance he appointed certain men, collectors of the
 tenths in name, in reality the ministers and satellites of his desires; by whom I
 will show that the province was for three years so harassed and plundered, O judges,
 that it will take many years and a long series of wise and incorruptible governors
 to recover it.

The chief of all those who were called collectors, was Quintus Apronius, that man
 whom you see in court, concerning whose extraordinary wickedness you have heard the
 complaints of most influential deputations. Look, O judges, at the face and
 countenance of the man; and from that obstinacy which he retains now in the most
 desperate circumstances, you may imagine and recollect what his arrogance must have
 been in Sicily . This Apronius is the man
 whom Verres (though he had collected together the most infamous men from all
 quarters, and though he had taken with him no small number of men like himself in
 worthlessness, licentiousness, and audacity,) still considered most like himself of
 any man in the whole province. And so in a very short time they became intimate, not
 because of interest, nor of reason, nor of any introduction from mutual friends, but
 from the baseness and similarity of their pursuits.

You know the depraved and licentious habits of Verres. Imagine to yourselves, if
 you can, any one who can be in every respect equal to him in the wicked and
 dissolute commission of every crimes that man will be Apronius; who, as he shows not
 only by his life, but by his person and countenance, is a vast gulf and whirlpool of
 every sort of vice and infamy. Him did Verres employ as his chief agent in all his
 adulteries, in all his plundering of temples, in all his debauched banquets; and the
 similarity of their manners caused such a friendship and unanimity between them,
 that Apronius, whom every one else thought a boor and a barbarian, appeared to him
 alone an agreeable and an accomplished man; that, though every one else hated him,
 and could not bear the sight of him, Verres could not bear to be away from him;
 that, though others shunned even the banquets at which Apronius was to be presents
 Verres used the same cup with him; lastly, that, though the odour of Apronius's
 breath and person is such that even, as one may say, the beasts cannot endure him,
 he appeared to Verres alone sweet and pleasant. He sat next to him on the
 judgment-seat; he was alone with him in his chamber; he was at the head of his table
 at his banquets; and especially then, when he began to dance at the feast naked,
 while the young son of the praetor was sitting by.

This man, as I began to say, Verres selected for his principal agent in
 distressing and plundering the fortunes of the cultivators of the land. To this
 man's audacity, and wickedness, and cruelty, our most faithful allies and most
 virtuous citizens were given up, O judges, by this praetor, and were placed at his
 mercy by new regulations and new edicts, the entire law of Hiero, as I said before,
 having been rejected and repudiated.

First of all, listen, O judges, to his splendid edict.
 “Whatever amount of tithe the collector declared that the cultivator ought to pay,
 that amount the cultivator should be compelled to pay to the collector.”—How? Let
 him pay as much as Apronius demands? What is this? is the regulation of a praetor
 for allies, or the edict and command of an insane tyrant to conquered enemies? Am I
 to give as much as he demands? He will demand every grain that I can get out of my
 land. Am I to give all? Yes, and more too, if he chooses. What, then, am I to do?
 What do you think? You must either pay, or you will be convicted of having disobeyed
 the edict. O ye immortal gods, what a state of things is this For it is hardly
 credible. And indeed.

I am persuaded, O judges, that, though you should think that all other vices are
 met in this man, still this must seem false to you. For I myself, though all
 Sicily told me of it, still should not
 dare to affirm this to you, if I was not able to recite to you these edicts from his
 own documents in those very words—as I will do. Give this, I pray you, to the clerk;
 he shall read from the register. Read the edict about the returns of property. [The
 edict about the returns of property is read.] He says I am not reading the whole.
 For that is what he seems to intimate by shaking his head. What am I passing over?
 is it that part where you take care of the interests of the Sicilians, and show
 regard for the miserable cultivators? For you announce in your edict, that you will
 condemn the collector in eightfold damages, if he has taken more than was due to
 him. I do not wish anything to be passed over. Read this also which he requires;
 read every word. [The edict about the eightfold damages is read.] Does this mean
 that the cultivator is to prosecute the collector at law? It is a miserable and
 unjust thing for men to be brought from the country into the forum, from the plough
 to the courts of justice; from habits of rustic life to actions and trials to which
 they are wholly unaccustomed.

When in all the other countries liable to tribute, of Asia , of Macedonia , of
 Spain , of Gaul , of Africa , of
 Sicily , and in those parts of Italy also which are so liable; when in all these, I
 say, the farmer in every case has a right to claim and a power to distrain, but not
 to seize and take possession without the interference of the law, you established
 regulations respecting the most virtuous and honest and honourable class of
 men,—that is, respecting the cultivators of the soil,—which are contrary to all
 other laws. Which is the most just, for the collector to have to make his claim, or
 for the cultivator to have to recover what has been unlawfully seized? for them to
 go to trial when things are in their original state, or when one side is ruined? for
 him to be in possession of the property who has acquired it by hard labour, or him
 who has obtained it by bidding for it at an auction? What more? They who cultivate
 single acres, who never cease from personal labour, of which class there were a
 great number, and a vast multitude among the Sicilians before you came as
 praetor,—what are they to do? When they have given to Apronius all he has demanded,
 are they to leave their allotments? to leave their own household gods? to come to
 Syracuse , in order while you,
 forsooth, are praetor, to prosecute, by the equal law which they will find there,
 Apronius, the delight and joy of your life, in a suit for recovery of their
 property?

But so be it. Some fearless and experienced cultivator will be found, who, when he
 has paid the collector as much as he says is due, will seek to recover it by course
 of law, and will sue for the eightfold penalty. I look for the vigour of the edict,
 for the impartiality of the praetor; I espouse the cause of the cultivator; I wish
 to see Apronius condemned in the eightfold penalty. What now does the cultivator
 demand? Nothing but sentence for an eightfold penalty, according to the edict. What
 says Apronius? He is unable to object. What says the praetor? He bids him challenge
 the judges. Let us, says he, make out the decuries. What decuries? Those from my
 retinue; you will challenge the others. What? of what men is that retinue composed?
 Of Volusius the soothsayer, and Cornelius the physician, and the other dogs whom you
 see licking up the crumbs about my judgment-seat. For he never appointed any judge
 or recuperator from the proper body. He said all men who
 possessed one clod of earth were unfairly prejudiced against the collectors. People
 had to sue Apronius before these men who had not yet got rid of the surfeit from his
 last banquet. What a
 splendid and memorable court! what an impartial decision! what a safe resource for
 the cultivators of the soil!

And that you may understand what sort of decisions are obtained in actions for the
 eightfold penalty, and what sort of judges those selected from that man's retinue
 are considered to be, listen to this. Do you think that any collector, when this
 licence was allowed him of taking from the cultivator whatever he claimed, ever did
 demand more than was due? Consider yourselves in your own minds, whether you think
 any one ever did so, especially when it might have happened, not solely through
 covetousness, but even though ignorance. Many must have done so. But I say that all
 extorted more, and a great deal more, than the proper tenths. Tell me of one man, in
 the whole three years of your praetorship, who was condemned in the eightfold
 penalty. Condemned, indeed! Tell me of one man who was ever prosecuted according to
 your edict. There was not, in fact, one cultivator who was able to complain that
 injustice had been done to him; not one collector who claimed one grain more as due
 to him than really was due. Far from that. Apronius seized and carried off whatever
 he chose from every one. In every district the cultivators, harassed and plundered
 as they were, were complaining, and yet no instance of a trial can be found.

Why is this? Why did so many bold, honourable, and highly esteemed men—so many
 Sicilians, so many Roman knights—when injured by one most worthless and infamous
 man, not seek to recover the eightfold penalty, which had most unquestionably been
 incurred? What is the cause, what is the reason? That reason alone, O judges, which
 you see,—because they knew they should come off at the trial defrauded and
 ridiculed. In truth, what sort of triad must that be, when three of the profligate
 and abandoned retinue of Verres sat on the tribunal under the name of judges?—slaves
 of Verres, not inherited by him from his father, but recommended to him by his
 mistress.

The cultivator, forsooth, might plead his cause; he might show that no corn was
 left him by Apronius,—that even his other property was seized; that he himself had
 been driven away with blows. Those admirable men would lay their heads together,
 they would chat to one another about revels and harlots, if they could catch any
 when leaving the praetor. The cause would seem to be properly heard: Apronius would
 have risen, full of his new dignity as a knight; not like a collector all over dirt
 and dust, but reeking with perfumes, languid with the lateness of the last night's
 drinking party, with his first motion, and with his breath he would have filled the
 whole place with the odour of wine, of perfume, and of his person. He would have
 said, what he repeatedly has said, that he had bought, not the tenths, but the
 property and fortunes of the cultivators; that he, Apronius, was not a collector,
 but a second Verres,—the absolute lord and master of those men. And when he had said
 this, those admirable men of Verres's train, the judges, would deliberate, not about
 acquitting Apronius, but they would inquire how they could condemn the cultivator
 himself to pay damages to Apronius.

When you had granted this licence for plundering the cultivators to the collectors
 of the tenths,—that is, to Apronius,—by allowing him to demand as much as he chose,
 and to carry off as much as he demanded, were you preparing this defence for your
 trial,—that you had promised by edict that you would assign judges in a trial for an
 eightfold penalty? Even if in truth you were to give power to the cultivator, not
 only to challenge his judges, but even to pick them out of the whole body of the
 Syracusan assembly, (a body of most eminent and honourable men,) still no one could
 bear this new sort of injustice,—that, when one has given up the whole of one's
 produce to the farmer, and had one's property taken out of one's hands, then one is
 to endeavour to recover one's property and to seek its restitution by legal
 proceedings.

But when what is granted by the edict is, in name indeed, a trial, but in reality
 a collusion of your attendants, most worthless men, with the collectors, who are
 your partners, and besides that, with the judges, do you still dare to mention that
 trial, especially when what you say is refuted, not merely by my speech, but by the
 facts themselves? when in all the distresses of the cultivators of the soil, and all
 the injustice of the collectors, not only has no trial ever taken place according to
 that splendid edict, but none has ever been so much as demanded?

However, he will be more favourable to the cultivators than he appears; for the
 same man who has announced in his edict that he will allow a trial against the
 collectors, in which they shall be liable to an eightfold penalty, had it also set
 down in his edict, that he would grant a similar trial against the cultivators, in
 which they should be liable to a fourfold penalty. Who now dares to say that this
 man was unfavourably disposed or hostile to the cultivators? How much more lenient
 is he to them than to the collectors? He has ordered in his edict that the Sicilian
 magistrate should exact from the cultivator whatever the collector declared ought to
 be paid to him. What sentence has he left behind, which can be pronounced against a
 cultivator of the soil It is not a bad thing, says he, for that fear to exist; so
 that, when the money has been exacted from the cultivator, still there will be
 behind a fear of the court of justice, to prevent him from stirring himself. If you
 wish to exact money from me by process of law, remove the Sicilian magistrate. If
 you employ this violence, what need is there of a process of law? Moreover, who will
 there be who would not prefer paying to your collectors what they demand, to being
 condemned in four times the amount by your attendants.

But that is a splendid clause in the edict, that gives notice that in all disputes
 which arise between the cultivator and the collector, he will assign judges, if
 either party wishes it. In the first place, what dispute can there be when he who
 ought to make a claim, makes a seizure instead? and when he seizes, not as much as
 is due, but as much as he chooses? and when he, whose property is seized, cannot
 possibly recover his own by a suit at law? In the second place, this dirty fellow
 wants even in this to seem cunning and wily; for he frames his edict in these
 words—“If either wishes it, I will assign judges.” How neatly does he think he is
 robbing him! He gives each party the power of choice; but it makes no difference
 whether he wrote—“If either wishes it," or "If the collector wishes it.” For the
 cultivator will never wish for those judges of yours.

What next? What sort of edicts are those which he issued to meet particular
 occasions, at the suggestion of Apronius? When Quintus Septitius, a most honourable
 man, and a Roman knight, resisted Apronius, and declared that he would not pay more
 than a tenth, a sudden special edict makes its appearance, that no one is to remove
 his corn from the threshing-floor before he has settled the demands of the
 collector. Septitius put up with this injustice also, and allowed his corn to be
 damaged by the rain, while remaining on the threshing-floor, when on a sudden that
 most fruitful and profitable edict comes out, that every one was to have his tenths
 delivered at the water-side before the first of August.

By this edict, it was not the Sicilians, (for he had already sufficiently crushed
 and ruined them by his previous edicts,) but all those Roman knights who had fancied
 that they could preserve their rights against Apronius, excellent men, and highly
 esteemed by other praetors, who were delivered bound hand and foot into the power of
 Apronius. For just listen and see what sort of edicts these are. “A man,” says he,
 “is not to remove his corn from the threshing-floor, unless he has settled all
 demands.” This is a sufficiently strong inducement to making unfair demands; for I
 had rather give too much, than not remove my corn from the threshing-floor at the
 proper time. But that violence does not affect Septitius, and some others like
 Septitius, who say, “I will rather not remove my corn, than submit to an
 extortionate demand.” To these then the second edict is opposed. “You must have
 delivered it by the first of August.” I will deliver it then.—“Unless you have
 settled the demands, you shall not remove it.” So the fixing of the day for
 delivering it at the waterside, compelled the man to remove his corn from the
 threshing floor. And the prohibition to remove, unless the demand were settled, made
 the settlement compulsory and not voluntary.

But what follows is not only contrary to the law of Hiero, not only contrary to
 the customs of all former praetors, but even contrary to all the rights of the
 Sicilians, which they have as granted them by the senate and people of Rome ,—that they shall not be forced to give
 security to appear in any courts of justice but their own. Verres made a regulation
 that the cultivator should appear to an action brought by a collector in any court
 which the collector might choose. So that in this way also gain might accrue to
 Apronius, when he dragged a defendant all the way from Leontini to Lilybaeum to appear before the court there, by
 making false accusations against the wretched cultivators. Although that device for
 false accusation was also contrived with singular cunning, when he ordered that the
 cultivators should make a return of their acres, as to what they were sown with. And
 this had not only great power in causing most iniquitous claims to be submitted to,
 as we shall show hereafter, and that too without any advantage to the republic, but
 at the same time it gave a great handle to false accusations, which all men were
 liable to if Apronius chose.

For, as any one said anything contrary to his inclination, immediately he was
 summoned before the court on some charge relative to the returns made of his lands.
 Through fear of which action a great quantity of corn was extorted from many, and
 vast sums were collected; not that it was really difficult to male a correct return
 of a man's acres, or even to make an extravagantly liberal one, (for what danger
 could there be in doing that?) but still it opened a pretext for demanding a trial
 because the cultivator had not made his return in the terms of the edict. And you
 must feel sure what sort of trial that would be while that man was praetor, if you
 recollect what sort of a train and retinue he had about him. What is it, then, which
 I wish you to understand, O judges, from the iniquity of these new edicts? That any
 injury has been done to our allies? That you see. That the authority of his
 predecessors has been overruled by him? He will not dare to deny it.

That Apronius had such great influence while he was praetor? That he must
 unavoidably confess. But perhaps you will inquire in this place, as the law reminds
 you to do, whether he himself has made any money by this conduct. I will show you
 that he has made vast sums, and I will prove that he established all those
 iniquitous rules which I have mentioned before, with no object but his own profit,
 when I have first removed out of his line of defence that rampart which he thinks he
 shall be able to employ against all my attacks. I sold, says
 he, the tenths at a high price. What are you saying? Did you, O most audacious and
 senseless of men, sell the tenths? Did you sell those portions which the senate and
 people of Rome allowed you to sell, or the
 whole produce; and in that the whole property and fortunes of the cultivators? If
 the crier had openly given notice by your order, that there was being sold, not a
 tenth, but half the corn, and if purchasers had come with the idea of buying half
 the corn—if then you had sold the half for more than the other praetors had sold the
 tenth part of it, would that seem strange to any one? But what shall we say if the
 crier gave notice of a sale of the tenths, but if, in fact, by your regulation,—by
 your edict,—by the terms of the sale which you offered, more than a half portion Was
 sold? Will you still think that creditable to yourself, to have sold what you had no
 right to sell for more than others sold what they fairly could?

Oh, you sold the tenths for more than others had sold them. By what means did you
 manage that? by innocent means? Look at the temple of Castor, and then, if you dare,
 talk of your innocent means. By your diligence? Look at the erasures in your
 registers at the name of Sthenius of Thermae, and then have the face to call
 yourself diligent. By your ability? You who refused at the former pleadings to put
 questions to the witnesses, and preferred presenting yourself dumb before them, pray
 call yourself and your advocates able men as much as you please. By what means,
 then, did you manage what you say you did? For it is a great credit to you if you
 have surpassed your predecessors in ability, and left to your successors your
 example and your authority. Perhaps you had no one before you fit to imitate. But,
 no doubt, all men will imitate you, the investor and first parent of such excellent
 methods.

What cultivator of the soil, when you were praetor, paid a tenth? Who paid
 two-tenths only? Who was there who did not think himself treated with the greatest
 lenity if he paid three tenths instead of one, except a few men, who, on account of
 a partnership with you in your robberies, paid nothing at all? See how great a
 difference there is between your harshness and the kindness of the senate. The
 senate, when owing to any necessity of the republic it is compelled to decree that a
 second tenth shall be exacted, decrees that for that second tenth money be paid to
 the cultivators, so that the quantity which is taken beyond what is strictly due may
 be considered to be purchased, not to be taken away. You, when you were exacting and
 seizing so many tenths, not by a decree of the senate, but by your own edicts and
 nefarious regulations, shall you think that you have done a great deed if you sell
 them for more than Lucius Hortensius, the father of this Quintus Hortensius,
 did,—than Cnaeus Pompeius or Caius Marcellus sold them for; men who did not violate
 justice, or law, or established rules?

Were you to consider what might be got in one year, or in two years, and to
 neglect the safety of the province, the well-doing of the corn interest, and the
 interests of the republic in future times, though you came to the administration of
 affairs when matters were so managed that sufficient corn was supplied to the Roman
 people from Sicily , and still it was a
 profitable thing for the cultivators to plough and till their land? What have you
 brought about? What have you gained? In order that, while you were praetor, some
 addition might be made to the revenue derived from the tenths, you have caused the
 allotments of land to be deserted and abandoned. Lucius Metellus succeeded you. Were
 you more innocent than Metellus? Were you more desirous of credit and honour? For
 you were seeking the consulship, but Metellus neglected the renown which he had
 inherited from his father and his grandfather. He sold the tenths for much less, not
 only than you had done, but even than those had who had sold them before you.
 I ask, if he himself
 could not contrive any means for selling them at the best possible price, could he
 not follow in the fresh steps of you the very last praetor, so as to use your
 admirable edicts and regulations, invented and devised by you their author?

But he thought that he should not at all be a Metellus if he imitated you in
 anything; he who when he thought that he was to go to that province sent letters to
 the cities of Sicily from Rome , a thing which no one in the memory of man
 ever did before, in which he exhorts and entreats the Sicilians to plough and sow
 their land for the service of the Roman people. He begs this some time before his
 arrival, and at the same time declares that he will sell the tenths according to the
 law of Hiero; that is to say, that in the whole business of the tenths he will do
 nothing like that man. And he writes this, not from being impelled by any
 covetousness to send letters into the province before his time, but out of prudence,
 lest, if the seed-time passed, we should have not a single grain of corn in the
 province of Sicily . See Metellus's letters.

Read the letter of Lucius Metellus. [The letters of Lucius Metellus are read.]
 It is these letters, O
 judges, of Lucius Metellus, which you have heard, that have raised all the corn that
 there in this year in Sicily . No one would
 have broken one clod of earth in all the land of Sicily subject to the payment of tenths, if Metellus had not sent
 this letter. What? Did this idea occur to Metellus by inspiration, or had he his
 information from the Sicilians who had come to Rome in great numbers, and from the traders of Sicily ? And who is ignorant what great crowds of
 them assembled at the door of the Marcelli, the most ancient patrons of Sicily ? what crowds of them thronged to Cnaeus
 Pompeius, the consul elect, and to the rest of the men connected with the province?
 And such a thing never yet took place in the instance of any one, as for a man to be
 openly accused by those people over whose property and families he had supreme
 dominion and power. So great was the effect of his injuries, that men preferred to
 suffer anything, rather than not to bewail themselves and complain of his wickedness
 and injuries.

And when Metellus had sent these letters couched in almost a supplicating tone to
 all the cities, still he was far from prevailing with them to sow the land as they
 formerly had. For many had fled, as I shall presently show, and had left not only
 their allotments of land, but even their paternal homes, being driven away by the
 injuries of that man. I will not indeed, O judges, say
 anything for the sake of unduly exaggerating my charges. But the sentiments which I
 have imbibed through my eyes and in my mind, those I will state to you truly, and,
 as far as I can, plainly.

For when four years afterwards I came into Sicily , it appeared to me in such a condition as those countries are
 apt to be in, in which a bitter and long war has been carried on. Those plains and
 fields which I had formerly seen beautiful and verdant, I now saw so laid waste and
 desolate that the very land itself seemed to feel the want of its cultivators, and
 to be mourning for its master. The land of Herbita, of Enna , of Morgantia, of Assoria, of Imachara, and of Agyrium , was so deserted as to its principal part,
 that we had to look not only for the allotments of land, but also for the body of
 owners. But the district of Aetna , which
 used to be most highly cultivated, and that which was the very head of the corn
 country, the district of Leontini, the character of which was formerly such that
 when you had once seen that sown, you did not fear any dearness of provisions, was
 so rough and unsightly, that in the most fruitful part of Sicily we were asking where Sicily could be gone? The previous year had, indeed,
 greatly shaken the cultivators, but the last one had utterly ruined them.

Will you dare also to make mention to me of the tenths? Do you, after such
 wickedness, after such cruelty, after such numerous and serious injuries done to
 people, when the whole province of Sicily 
 entirely depends on its arable land, and on its rights connected with that land;
 after the cultivators have been entirely ruined, the fields deserted—after you have
 left no one in so wealthy and populous a province—not only no property, but no hope
 even remaining; do you, I say, think that you can acquire any popularity by saying
 that you have sold the tenths at a better price than the other praetors? As if the
 Roman people had formed this wish, or the senate had given you this commission, by
 seizing all the fortunes of the cultivators under the name of tenths, to deprive the
 Roman people for all future time of that revenue, and of their supply of corn; and,
 as if after that, by adding some part of your own plunder to the total amount got
 from the tenths, you could appear to have deserved well of the Roman people.
 And I say this, as if his injustice was to be reproved in
 this particular, that, out of a desire for credit to be got by surpassing others in
 the sum derived from tenths, he had put forth a law rather too severe, and edicts
 rather too stringent, and rejected the examples of all his predecessors.

You sold the tenths at a high price. What will be said, if I prove that you
 appropriated and took to your own house no less a sum than you had sent to
 Rome under the name of tenths? What is
 there to obtain popularity for you in that plan of yours, when you took for yourself
 from a province of the Roman people a share equal to that which you sent to the
 Roman people? What will be said if I prove that you took twice as much corn yourself
 as you sent to the Roman people? Shall we still expect to see your advocate toss his
 head at this accusation, and throw himself on the people, and on the assembly here
 present? These things you have heard before, O judges; but perhaps you have heard it
 on no other authority than report, and the common conversation of men. Know now that
 an enormous sum was taken by him on pretences connected with corn; and consider at
 the same time the profligacy of that saying of his, when he said that by the profit
 made on the tenths alone, he could buy himself off from all his dangers.

We have heard this for a long time, O judges. I say that there is not one of you
 who has not often heard that the collectors of the tenths were that mans partners. I
 do not think that anything else has been said against him falsely by those who think
 ill of him but this. For they are to be considered partners of a man, with whom the
 gains of a business are shared. But I say that the whole of these gains, and the
 whole of the fortunes of the cultivators, went to Verres alone. I say that Apronius,
 and those slaves of Venus, who were quite a new class of farmers first heard of in
 his praetorship! and the other collectors, were only agents of that one man's gains,
 and ministers of his plunder. How do you prove that?

How did I prove that he had committed robbery in the contract for those pillars?
 Chiefly, I think, by this fact, that he had put forth an unjust and unprecedented
 law. For who ever attempted to change all the rights of people, and the customs of
 all men, getting great blame for so doing, except for some gain? I will proceed and
 carry this matter further. You sold the tenths according to an unjust law, in order
 to sell them for more money. Why, when the tenths were now knocked down and
 sold,—when nothing could now be added to their sum total, but much might be to your
 own gains,—why did new edicts appear, made on a sudden and to meet an emergency? For
 I say, that in your third year you issued edicts, that a collector might summon a
 man before the court anywhere he liked; that the cultivator might not remove his
 corn from the threshing-floor, before he had settled the claims of the collector;
 that they should have the tenths delivered at the water-side before the first of
 August. All these edicts, I say, you issued after the tenths had been sold. But if
 you had issued them for the sake of the republic, notice would have been given of
 them at the time of selling; because you were acting with a view to your own
 interest, you, being prompted by your love of gain and by the emergency, repaired
 the omission which had unintentionally occurred.

But who can be induced to believe this—that you, without any profit, or even
 without the greatest profit to yourself, disregarded the great disgrace, the great
 danger to your position as a free man, and to your fortunes, which you were
 incurring, so far as, though you were daily hearing the groans and complaints of all
 Sicily ,—though, as you yourself have
 said, you expected to be brought to trial for this,—though the hazard of this
 present trial is not at all inconsistent with the opinion you yourself had
 formed,—still to allow the cultivators of the soil to be harassed and plundered with
 circumstances of the most scandalous injustice? In truth, though you are a man of
 singular cruelty and audacity, still you would be unwilling for a whole province to
 be alienated from you,—for so many most honourable men to be made your greatest
 enemies, if your desire for money and present booty had not overcome all reason and
 all consideration of safety.

But, O judges, since it is not possible for me to detail to you the sum total and
 the whole number of his acts of injustice,—since it would be an endless task to
 speak separately of the injuries done to each individual,—I beg you, listen to the
 different kinds of injustice. There is a man of Centuripa, named Nympho, a clever and industrious
 man, a most experienced and diligent cultivator. He, though he rented very large
 allotments, (as other rich men like him have been in the habit of doing in
 Sicily ,) and though he cultivated them at
 great expense, keeping a great deal of stock, was treated by that man with such
 excessive injustice, that he not only abandoned his allotments, but even fled from
 Sicily , and came to Rome with many others who had been driven away by
 that man. He then contrived that the collector should assert that Nympho had not
 made a proper return of his number of acres, according to that notable edict, which
 had no other object except making profit of this sort.

As Nympho wished to defend himself in a regular action, he appoints some excellent
 judges, that same physician Cornelius, (his real name is Artemidorus, a citizen of
 Perga, under which name he had formerly in his own country acted as guide to Verres,
 and as prompter in his exploit of plundering the temple of Diana,) and Volusius the
 soothsayer, and Valerius the crier. Nympho was condemned before he had fairly got
 into court. In what penalty? perhaps you will ask, for there was no fixed sum
 mentioned in the edict In the penalty of all the corn which was on his
 threshing-floors. So Apronius the collector takes, by a penalty for violating an
 edict, and not by any rights connected with his farming the revenue—not the tenth
 that was due, not corn that had been removed and concealed, but seven thousand
 medimni of wheat—from the allotments of Nympho.

A farm belonging to the wife of Xeno 
 Menenius, a most noble man, had been let to a settler. The settler, because he could
 not bear the oppressive conduct of the collectors, had fled from his land. Verres
 gave his favourite sentence of condemnation against
 Xeno for not having made a return of his
 acres. Xeno said that it was no business of
 his; that the farm was let. Verres ordered a trial to take place according to this
 formula,—“If it should appear” that there were more acres in the farm than the
 settler had returned, then Xeno was to be
 condemned. He said not only that he had not been the cultivator of the land, which
 was quite sufficient, but also that he was neither the owner of that farm, nor the
 lessor of it; that it belonged to his wife; that she herself transacted her own
 affairs; that she had let the land. A man of the very highest reputation, and of the
 greatest authority, defended Xeno , Marcus
 Cossetius. Nevertheless Verres ordered a trial, in which the penalty was fixed at
 eighty thousand sesterces .
 Xeno , although he saw that judges were
 provided for him out of that band of robbers, still said that he would stand the
 trial. Then that fellow, with a loud voice, so that Xeno might hear it, orders his
 slaves of Venus to take care the man does not escape while the trial is proceeding,
 and as soon as it is over to bring him before him. And at the same time he said
 also, that he did not think that, if from his riches he disregarded the penalty of a
 conviction, he would also disregard the scourge. He, under the compulsion of this
 violence and this fear, paid the collectors all that Verres commanded.

There is a citizen of Morgentia, named Polemarchus, a virtuous and honourable man.
 He, when seven hundred medimni were demanded as the
 tenths due on fifty acres, because he refused to pay them, was summoned before the
 praetor at his own house; and, as he was still in bed, he was introduced into his
 bed-chamber, into which no one else was admitted, except his woman and the
 collector. There he was beaten and kicked about till, though he had refused before
 to pay seven hundred medimni , he now promised a
 thousand. Eubulides Grosphus is a man of Centuripa, a man above all others of his
 city, both for virtue and high birth, and also for wealth. They left this man, O
 judges, the most honourable man of a most honourable city, not merely only so much
 corn, but only so much life as pleased Apronius. For by force, by violence, and by
 blows, he was induced to give corn, not as much as he had, but as much as was
 demanded of him, which was even more.

Sostratus, and Numenius, and Nymphodorus, of the same city, three brothers of
 kindred sentiments, when they had fled from their lands because more corn was
 demanded of them than their lands had produced, were treated thus,—Apronius
 collected a band of men, came into their allotments, took away all their tools,
 carried off their slaves, and drove off their live stock. Afterwards, when
 Nymphodorus came to Aetna to him, and
 begged to have his property restored to him, he ordered the man to be seized and
 hung up on a wild olive, a tree which is the forum there; and an ally and friend of
 the Roman people, a settler and cultivator of your domain, hung suspended from a
 tree in a city of our allies, and in the very forum, for as long a period as
 Apronius chose.

I have now been recounting to you, O judges, the species of
 countless injuries which he has wrought,—one of each sort. An infinite host of evil
 actions I pass over. Place before your own eyes, keep in your minds, these invasions
 by collectors of the whole of Sicily , their
 plunderings of the cultivators of the soil, the harshness of this man, the absolute
 reign of Apronius. He despised the Sicilians; he did not consider them as men, he
 thought that they would not be vigorous in avenging themselves, and that you would
 treat their oppression lightly.

Be it so. He adopted a false opinion about them, and a very injurious one about
 you. But while he deserved so ill of the Sicilians, at least, I suppose, he was
 attentive to the Roman citizens; he favoured them; he was wholly devoted to securing
 their good-will and favour? He attentive to the Roman citizens? There were no men to
 whom he was more severe or more hostile. I say nothing of chains, of imprisonment,
 of scourgings, of executions. I say nothing even of that cross which he wished to be
 a witness to the Roman citizens of his humanity and benevolence to them. I say
 nothing, I say, of all this, and I put all this off to another opportunity. I am
 speaking about the tenths,—about the condition of the Roman citizens in their
 allotments; and how they were treated you heard from themselves. They have told you
 that their property was taken from them.

But since there was such a cause for it as there was, these things are to he
 endured,—I mean, the absence of all influence in justice, of all influence in
 established customs. There are, in short, no evils, O judges, of such magnitude that
 bravo men, of great and free spirit, think them intolerable. What shall we say if,
 while that man was praetor, violent hands were, without any hesitation, laid by
 Apronius on Roman knights, who were not obscure, nor unknown, but honourable, and
 even illustrious? What more do you expect? What more do you think I can say? Must I
 pass as quickly as possible from that man and from his actions, in order to come to
 Apronius, as, when I was in Sicily , I
 promised him that I would do?—who detained for two days in the public place at
 Leontini, Caius Matrinius, a man, O judges, of the greatest virtue, the greatest
 industry, the highest popularity. Know, O judges, that a Roman knight was kept two
 days without food, without a roof over his head, by a man born in disgrace, trained
 in infamy, practiced in accommodating himself to all Verres's vices and lusts; that
 he was kept and detained by the guards of Apronius two days in the forum at
 Leontini, and not released till he had agreed to submit to his terms.

For why, O judges, should I speak of Quintus Lollius, a Roman knight of tried
 probity and honour? (the matter which I am going to mention is clear, notorious, and
 undoubted throughout all Sicily ;)—who, as
 he was a cultivator of the domain in the district of Aetna , and as his farm belonged to Apronius's district as well as the
 rest, relying on the ancient authority and influence of the equestrian order,
 declared that he would not pay the collectors more than was due from him to them.
 His words are reported to Apronius. He laughed, and marveled that Lollius had heard
 nothing of Matrinius or of his other actions. He sends his slaves of Venus to the
 man. Remark this also, that a collector had officers appointed to attend him by the
 praetor; and see if this is a slight argument that he abused the name of the
 collectors to purposes of his own gain. Lollius is brought before Apronius by the
 slaves of Venus, and dragged along, at a convenient moment, when Apronius had just
 returned from the palaestra, and was lying on a couch which he had spread in the
 forum of Aetna Lollius is placed in the middle of that seemly banquet of gladiators.

I would not, in truth, O judges, believe the things which I am now saying although
 I heard them commonly talked about, if the old man had not himself told them to me
 in the most solemn manner, when he was with tears expressing his thanks to me and to
 the willingness with which I had undertaken this accusation. A Roman knight, I say,
 nearly ninety years old, is placed in the middle of Apronius's banquet, while
 Apronius in the meantime was rubbing his head and face with ointment. “What is this,
 Lollius,” says he; “cannot you behave properly, unless you are compelled by severe
 measures?” What was the man to do? should he hold his tongue, or answer him? In
 truth he, a man of that bright character, and that age, did not know what to do.
 Meantime Apronius called for supper and wine; and his slaves, who were of no better
 manners than their master, and were born of the same class and in the same rank of
 life, brought these things before the eyes of Lollius. The guests began to laugh,
 Apronius himself roared; unless, perchance, you suppose that he did not laugh in the
 midst of wine and feasting, who even now at the time of his danger and ruin cannot
 suppress his laughter. Not to detain you too long; know, O judges, that Quintus
 Lollius, under the compulsion of these insults, came into the terms and conditions
 of Apronius.

Lollius, enfeebled by old age and disease, could not come to give his evidence.
 What need have we of Lollius? There is no one who is ignorant of this, no one of
 your own friends, no one who is brought forward by you, no one at all who, if he is
 asked, will say that he now hears this for the first time. Marcus Lollius, his son,
 a most excellent young man, is present; you shall hear what he says—For Quintus
 Lollius, his son, who was the accuser of Calidius, a young man both virtuous and
 bold, and of the highest reputation for eloquence, when being excited by these
 injuries and insults he had set out for Sicily , was murdered on the way; and the crime of his death is
 imputed indeed to fugitive slaves; but, in reality, no one in Sicily doubts that he must be murdered because he
 could not keep to himself his intentions respecting Verres. He, in truth, had no
 doubt that the man who, under the prompting of a mere love of justice, had already
 accused another, would be ready as an accuser for him on his arrival, when he was
 stimulated by the injuries of his father, and indignation at the treatment received
 by his family.

Do you now thoroughly understand, O judges, what a pest, what a barbarian has been
 let loose in your most ancient, most loyal, and nearest province? Do you see now on
 what account Sicily , which has before this
 endured the thefts, and rapine, and iniquities, and insults of so many men, has not
 been able to submit to this unprecedented, and extraordinary, and incredible series
 of injuries and insults? All men are now aware why the whole province sought out
 that man as a defender of its safety, from the effects of whose good faith, and
 diligence, and perseverance Verres could not possibly be saved. You have been
 present at many trials, you know that many guilty and wicked men have been impeached
 within your own recollection, and that of your ancestors. Have you ever seen any
 one, have you ever heard of any one, who has lived in the practice of such great,
 such open robberies, of such audacity, of such shameless impudence?

Apronius had his attendants of Venus about him; he took them with him about the
 different cities; he ordered banquets to be prepared and couches to be spread for
 him at the public expense, and to be spread for him in the forum. Thither he ordered
 most honourable men to be summoned, not only Sicilians, but even Roman knights, so
 that men of the most thoroughly proved honour were detained at his banquet, when
 none but the most impure and profligate men would join him in a banquet. Would you,
 O most profligate and abandoned of all mortals, when you knew these things, when you
 were hearing of them every day, when you were seeing them, would you ever have
 allowed or endured that such things should have taken place, to your own great
 danger, if they had taken place without enormous profit to yourself? Was it the
 profit made by Apronius, and his most beastly conversation, and his flagitious
 caresses, that had such influence with you, that no care for or thought of your own
 fortunes ever touched your mind?

You see, O judges, what sort of conflagration, and how vast a torrent of
 collectors spread itself with violence, not only over the fields but also over all
 the other property of the cultivators; not only over the property, but also over the
 rights of liberty and of the state. You see some men suspended from trees; others
 beaten and scourged; others kept as prisoners in the public place; others left
 standing alone at a feast; others condemned by the physician and crier of the
 praetor; and nevertheless the property of all of them is carried off from the fields
 and plundered at the same time. What is all this? Is this the rule of the Roman
 people? Are these the laws of the Roman people? are these their tribunals? are these
 their faithful allies? is this their suburban province? Are not rather all these
 things such that even Athenio would not have done them if he had been victorious in
 Sicily ? I say, O judges, that the
 evidence of fugitive slaves would not have equalled one quarter of the wickedness of
 that man. In this manner
 did he behave to individuals. What more shall I say? How were cities treated in
 their public capacity? You have heard many statements and testimonies from some
 cities, and you shall hear them from the rest.

And first of all, listen to a brief tale concerning the people of Agyrium , a loyal and illustrious people. The state
 of Agyrium is among the first in all
 Sicily for honour;—a state of men wealthy
 before this man came as praetor, and of excellent cultivators of the soil. When this
 same Apronius had purchased the tenths of that district, he came to Agyrium ; and when he had come thither with his
 regular attendants—that is to say, with threats and violence,—he began to ask an
 immense sum, so that when he had got his profit, he might depart. He said that he
 did not wish to have any trouble, nut that, when he had got his money, he would
 depart as soon as possible to some other city. All the Sicilians are not
 contemptible men, if only our magistrates leave them alone; but they are many, of
 sufficient courage, and very economical and temperate, and among the very first is
 this city of which I am now speaking, O judges.

Therefore the men of Agyrium make answer
 to this most worthless man, that they will give him the tenths which are due from
 them, that they will not add to them any profit for himself, especially since he had
 bought them an excellent bargain. Apronius informs Verres, whose business it ready
 was, what was going on. 
 Immediately, as if there had been some conspiracy at Agyrium formed against the republic, or as if the lieutenant of the
 praetor had been assaulted, the magistrates and five principal citizens are summoned
 from Agyrium at his command. They went to
 Syracuse . Apronius is there. He says
 that those very men who had come had acted contrary to the praetor's edict. They
 asked, in what? He answered, that he would say in what before the judges. He, that
 most just man, tried to strike his old terror into the wretched Agyrians; he
 threatened that he would appoint their judges out of his own retinue. The Agyrians,
 being very intrepid men, said that they would stand the trial.

That fellow put on the tribunal Artemidorus Cornelius, the physician, Valerius,
 the crier, Tlepolemus, the painter, and judges of that sort; not one of whom was a
 Roman citizen, but Greek robbers of temples, long since infamous, and now all
 Corneliuses. The Agyrians saw that whatever charge Apronius brought before whose
 judges, he would very easily prove; but they preferred to be convicted, and so add
 to his unpopularity and infamy, rather than accede to his conditions and terms. They
 asked what formula would be given to the judges on which to try them? He answered,
 “If it appeared that they had acted contrary to the edict,” on which formula he said
 that he should pronounce judgment. They preferred trying the question according to a
 most unjust formula, and with most profligate judges, rather than come to any
 settlement with him of their own accord. He sent Timarchides privately to them, to
 warn them, if they were wise, to settle the matter. They refused. “What, then, will
 you do? Do you prefer to be convicted each of you in a penalty of fifty thousand
 sesterces ?” They said they did. Then he said out
 loud, in the hearing of every one, “Whoever is condemned, shall be beaten to death
 with rods.” On this they began with tears to beg and entreat him to be allowed to
 give up their cornfields, and all their produce, and their allotments, when stripped
 of everything, to Apronius, and to depart themselves without insult and annoyance.

These were the terms, O judges, on which Verres sold the tenths. Hortensius may
 say, if he pleases, that Verres sold them at a high price. This was the condition of the cultivators
 of the soil while that man was praetor; that they thought themselves exceedingly
 well off, if they might give up their fields when stripped of everything to
 Apronius, for they wished to escaped the many crosses which were set before their
 eyes. Whatever Apronius had declared to be due, that they were forced to give,
 according to the edict. Suppose he declared more was due than the land produced?
 Just so. How could that be? The magistrates were bound, according to his own edict,
 to compel the payment. Well, but the cultivators could recover. Yes, but Artemidorus
 was the judge. What next? What happened if the cultivator had given less than
 Apronius had demanded? A prosecution of the cultivator to recover a fourfold
 penalty. Before judges taken from what body? From that admirable retinue of most
 honourable men in attendance on the praetor. What more? I say that you returned less
 than the proper number of acres: select judges for the matter which is to be tried,
 namely, your violation of the edict. Out of what class? Out of the same retinue.
 What will be the end of it? If you are convicted, (and what doubt can there be about
 a conviction with those judges?) you must be beaten to death with rods. When these
 are the rules, these the conditions, will there be any one so foolish as to think
 that what was sold were the tenths? Who believes that nine parts were left to the
 cultivator? Who does not perceive that that fellow considered as his own gain and
 plunder the property and possessions and fortunes of the cultivators? From fear of
 the gods the Agyrians said that they would do what they were commanded to.

Listen now to what his orders were; and conceal, if you can, that you are aware of
 what all Sicily well knew, that the praetor
 himself was the farmer of the tenths, or rather the lord and sovereign of all the
 allotments in the province. He orders the Agyrians to take the tenths themselves in
 the name of their city, and to give a compliment to Apronius. If he had bought them
 at a high price, since you are a man who inquired into the proper price with great
 diligence, who, as you say, sold them at a high price, why do you think that a
 compliment ought to be added as a present to the purchaser? Be it so; you did think
 so. Why did you order them to add it? What is the meaning; of taking and
 appropriating money, for which the law has a hold on you, if this is not it,—I mean
 the compelling men by force and despotic power against their will to give a
 compliment to another, that is to say, to give him money?

Well, what comes next? If they were ordered to give some small compliment to
 Apronius, the delight of the praetor's life, suppose that it was given to Apronius,
 if it seems to you the compliment to Apronius, and not the plunder of the praetor.
 You order them to take the tenths; to give Apronius a compliment,—thirty-three
 thousand medimni of wheat. What is this? One city
 is compelled by the command of the praetor to give to the Roman people out of one
 district almost food enough to support it for a month. Did you sell the tenths at a
 high price, when such a compliment was given to the collector? In truth, if you had
 inquired carefully into the proper price, then when you were selling them, they
 would rather have given ten thousand medimni more
 then, than six hundred thousand sesterces 
 afterwards. It seems a great booty. Listen to what follows, and remark it carefully,
 so as to be the less surprised that the Sicilians, being compelled by their
 necessity, entreated aid from their patrons, from the consuls, from the senate, from
 the laws, from the tribunals.

To pay Apronius for testing the wheat which was given to him, Verres orders the
 Agyrians to pay Apronius three sesterces for every
 medimnus . What is this? When such a quantity of corn has been
 extorted and exacted under the name of a compliment, is money to be exacted besides
 for testing the corn? Or could, not only Apronius, but any one, if corn was to be
 served out to the army, disapprove of the Sicilian corn, which Verres might have
 measured on the threshing-floor, if he had liked? That vast quantity of corn is
 given and extorted at your command. That is not enough. Money is demanded besides.
 It is paid. That is too little. For the tenths of barley more money is extorted. You
 order thirty thousand sesterces to be paid. And so
 from one city there are extorted by force, by threats, by the despotic power and
 injustice of the praetor thirty-three thousand medimni of wheat, and besides that, sixty thousand sesterces ! Are these things obscure? Or, even if all the
 world wished it, can those things be obscure which you did openly, which you ordered
 in open court, which you extorted when every one was looking on? concerning which
 matters the magistrates and five chief men of Agyrium, whom you summoned from their
 homes for the sake of your own gain, reported your acts and commands to their own
 senate at home; and that report, according to their laws, was recorded in the public
 registers, and the ambassadors of the Agyrians, most noble men, are at Rome , and have deposed to these facts in evidence.

Examine the public letters of the Agyrians; after that the public testimony of the
 city. Read the public letters. [The public letters are read.] Read the public
 evidence. [The public evidence is read.] You have remarked
 in this evidence, O judges, that Apollodorus, whose surname is Pyragrus, the chief
 man of his city, have his evidence with tears, and said that since the name of the
 Roman people had been heard by and known to the Sicilians, the Agyrians had never
 either said or done anything contrary to the interests of even the meanest of the
 Roman citizens; but that now they are compelled by great injuries, and great
 suffering to give evidence in a public manner against a praetor of the Roman people.
 You cannot, in truth. O Verres, invalidate the evidence of this one city by your
 defence; so great a weight is there in the fidelity of these men, such great
 indignation is there at their injuries, such great conscientiousness is there in the
 way in which they gave their evidence. But it is not one city alone, but every city,
 that now being crushed by similar distresses pursues you with deputations and public
 evidence.

Let us now, in regular order, proceed to see in what way the city of Herbita, an
 honourable and formerly a wealthy city, was harassed and plundered by him. A city of
 what sort of men? Of excellent agriculturists, men most remote from courts of law,
 from tribunals, and from disputes; whom you, O most profligate of men, ought to have
 spared, whose interests you ought to have consulted, the whole race of whom you
 ought most carefully to have preserved. In the first year of your praetorship the
 tenths of that district were sold for eighteen thousand 
 medimni of wheat. When Atidius, who was also his
 servant in the matter of tenths, had purchased them, and when he had come to Herbita
 with the title of' prefect, attended by the slaves of Verres, and when a place where
 he might lodge had been assigned him by the public act of the city, the people of
 Herbita are compelled to give him as a profit thirty-seven thousand modii of wheat, when the tenths of the wheat had been sold
 at eighteen thousand. And they are compelled to give this vast quantity of wheat in
 the name of their city, since the private cultivators of the soil had already fled
 from their lands, having been plundered and driven away by the injuries of the
 collectors.

In the second year, when Apronius had bought the tenths of wheat for twenty-five
 thousand modii , and when he himself had come to
 Herbita with his whole force and his whole band of robbers, the people was compelled
 to give him in the name of the city a present of twenty-six thousand modii of wheat, and a further gift of two thousand
 sesterces . I am not quite sure about this further
 gift, whether it was not given to Apronius himself as wages for his trouble, and a
 reward for his impudence. But concerning such an immense quantity of wheat, who can
 doubt that it came to that robber of corn, Verres, just as the corn of Agyrium did? But in the third year he adopted in
 this district the custom of sovereigns. They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians and Syrians are
 accustomed to have several wives, and to give to these wives cities in this
 fashion:—that this city is to dress the woman's waist, that one to dress her neck,
 that to dress her hair; and so they have whole nations not only privy to their
 lusts, but also assistants in it.

Learn that the licentiousness and lust of that man who thought himself king of the
 Sicilians, was much the same. The name of the wife of Aeschrio, a Syracusan, is
 Pippa, whose name has been made notorious over all Sicily by that man's profligacy, and many verses were inscribed on
 the praetor's tribunal, and over the praetor's head, about that woman. This
 Aeschrio, the imaginary husband of Pippa, is appointed as a new farmer of the tenths
 of Herbita. When the men of Herbita saw that if the business got into Aeschrio's
 hands they should be plundered at the will of a most dissolute woman, they did
 against him as far as they thought that they could go. Aeschrio bid on, for he was
 not afraid that, while Verres was praetor, the woman, who would be really the
 farmer, would ever be allowed to lose by it. The tenths are knocked down to him at
 thirty-five thousand medimni , nearly half as much
 again as they had fetched the preceding year. The cultivators were utterly
 destroyed, and so much the more because in the preceding year they had been drained
 dry, and almost ruined. He was aware that they had been sold at so high a price,
 that more could not be squeezed out of the people; so he deducts from the sum total
 three thousand six hundred medimni , and enters on
 the registers thirty-one thousand four hundred.

Docimus had bought the tenths of barley belonging to the same district. This
 Docimus is the man who had brought to Verres Tertia, the daughter of Isidorus the
 actor, having taken her from a Rhodian flute-player. The influence of this woman
 Tertia was greater with him than that of Pippa, or of all the other women, and I had
 almost said, was as great in his Sicilian praetorship as that of Chelidon had been
 in his city praetorship. There come to Herbita the two rivals of the praetor, not
 likely to be troublesome to him, infamous agents of most abandoned women. They begin
 to demand, to beg, to threaten; but though they wished it, they were not able to
 imitate Apronius. The Sicilians were not so much afraid of Sicilians; still, as they
 put forth false accusations in every possible way, the Herbitenses undertake to
 appear in court at Syracuse . When they
 had arrived there, they are compelled to give to Aeschrio—that is, to Pippa—as much
 as had been deducted from the original purchase-money, three thousand six hundred
 modii of wheat. He was not willing to give to the
 woman who was really the farmer too much profits out of the tenths, lest in that
 case she should transfer her attention from her nocturnal gains to the farming of
 the tributes.

The people of Herbita thought the matter was settled, when that man added,—“And
 what are you going to give out of the barley to my little friend Docimus? What are
 your intentions?” He transacted all this business, O judges, in his chamber, and in
 his bed. They said that they had no commission to give anything: “I do not hear you;
 pay him fifteen thousand sesterces .” What were the
 wretched men to do I or how could they refuse? especially when they saw the traces
 of the woman who was the collector fresh in the bed, by which they understood that
 he had been inflamed to persevere in his demand. And so one city of our allies and
 friends was made tributary of two most debauched women while Verres was praetor. And
 I now assert that that quantity of corn and those sums of money were given by the
 people of Herbita to the collectors in the name of the city. And yet by all that
 corn and all that money they could not deliver their fellow citizens from the
 injuries of the collectors. For after the property of the cultivators was destroyed
 and carried off, bribes were still to be given to the collectors to induce them to
 depart at length from their lands and from their cities.

And so when Philinus of Herbita, a man eloquent and prudent, and noble in his own
 city, spoke in public of the distress of the cultivators, and of their flight, and
 of the scanty numbers that were left behind, you remarked, O judges, the groans of
 the Roman people, a great crowd of whom has always been present at this cause. And
 concerning the scanty number of the cultivators I will speak at another time.
 But at this moment a
 topic, which I had almost passed over, must not be altogether forgotten. For, in the
 name of the immortal gods! how will you, I will not say tolerate, but how will you
 bear even to hear of the sums which Verres subtracted from the sum total?

Up to this time there has been one man only since the first foundation of
 Rome , (and may the immortal gods grant
 that there may never be another,) to whom the republic wholly committed herself,
 being compelled by the necessities of the times and domestic misfortunes. He had
 such power, that without his consent no one could preserve either his property, or
 his liberty, or his life. He had such courage in his audacity, that he was not
 afraid to say in the public assembly, when he was selling the property of Roman
 citizens, that he was selling his own booty. All his actions we not only still
 maintain, but out of fear of greater inconveniences and calamities, we defend them
 by the public authority. One decree alone of his has been remodeled by a resolution
 of the senate, and a decree has been passed, that these men, from the sum total of
 whose debts he had made a deduction, should pay the money into the treasury. The
 senate laid down this principle,—that even he to whom they had entrusted everything
 had not power to diminish the total amount of revenue acquired and procured by the
 valour of the Roman people.

The conscript fathers decided that he had no power to remit even to the bravest
 men any portion of their debts to the state. And shall the senators decide that you
 have lawfully remitted any to a most profligate woman? The man, concerning whom the
 Roman people had established a law that his absolute will should be the law to the
 Roman people, still is found fault with in this one particular, out of reverence for
 their ancient laws. Did you, who were liable to almost every law, think that your
 lust and caprice was to be a law to you? He is blamed for remitting a part of that
 money which he himself had acquired. Shall you be pardoned who have remitted part of
 the revenue due to the Roman people?

And in this description of boldness he proceeded even much more shamelessly with
 respect to the tenths of the district of Segesta; for when he had knocked them down
 to this same Docimus, for five thousand modii of
 wheat, and had added as an extra present fifteen thousand sesterces , he compelled the people of Segesta to take them of Docimus
 at the same price in the name of their city; and you shall have this proved by the
 public testimony of the Segestans. Read the public testimony [The public testimony
 is read.] You have heard at what price the city took the tenths from Docimus,—at
 five thousand modii of wheat, and an extra gift.
 Learn now at what price he entered them in his accounts as having been sold. [The
 law respecting the sale of tithes, Caius Verres being the praetor, is read.] You see
 that in this item three thousand bushels of wheat are deducted from the sum total,
 and when he had taken all this from the food of the Roman people, from the sinews of
 the revenue, from the blood of the treasury, he gave it to Tertia the actress? Shall
 I call it rather an impudent action, to extort from allies of the state, or an
 infamous one to give it to a prostitute? or a wicked one to take it away from the
 Roman people, or an audacious one to make false entries in the public accounts? Can
 any influence or any bribery deliver you from the severity of these judges? And if
 it should deliver you, do you not still see that the things which I am mentioning
 belong to another count of the prosecution, and to the action for peculation?

Therefore I will reserve the whole of that class of offences, and return to the
 charge respecting the corn and the tenths which I had begun to speak of. While this man was laying waste the largest and most fertile
 districts by his own agency, that is to say by Apronius, that second Verres, he had
 others whom he could send, like hounds, among the lesser cities, worthless and
 infamous men, to whom he compelled the citizens to give either corn or money in the
 name of their city. There
 is a man called Aulus Valentius in Sicily ,
 an interpreter, whom Verres used to employ not only as an interpreter of the Greek
 language, but also in his robberies and other crimes. This interpreter, an
 insignificant and needy man, becomes on a sudden a farmer of tenths. He purchases
 the tenths of the territory of Lipara , a
 poor and barren district, for six hundred medimni 
 of wheat. The people of Lipara are
 convoked: they are compelled to take the tenths, and to pay Valentius thirty
 thousand sesterces as profit. O ye immortal gods!
 which argument will you take for your defence; that you sold the tenths for so much
 less than you might have done,—that the city immediately, of its own accord, added
 to the six hundred medimni thirty thousand sesterces as a compliment, that is to say, two thousand
 medimni of wheat? or that, after you had sold the
 tenths at a high price, you still extorted this money from the people of Lipara against their will?

But why do I ask of you what defence you are going to employ, instead of rather
 asking the city itself what you have done. Read the public testimony of the
 Liparans, and after that read how the money was given to Valentius. [The public
 testimony is read.] [The statement how the money was paid, extracted out of the
 public accounts, is read.] Was even this little state, so far removed out of your
 reach and out of your sight, separated from Sicily , placed on a barren and uncultivated island, turned as a sort
 of crown to all your other iniquities, into a source of plunder and profit to you in
 this matter of corn? You had given the whole island to one of your companions as a
 trifling present, and still were these profits from corn exacted from it as from the
 inland states? And therefore the men who for so many years, before you came as
 praetor, were in the habit of ransoming their lands from the pirates, now had a
 price set on themselves, and were compelled to ransom themselves from you.

What more need I say? Was not more extorted, under the name of a compliment, from
 the people of Tissa , a very small and
 poor city, but inhabited by very hard-working agriculturists and most frugal men,
 than the whole crop of corn which they had extracted from their land? Among them you
 sent as farmer Diognotus, a slave of Venus, a new class of collector altogether.
 Why, with such a precedent as this, are not the public slaves at Rome also entrusted with the revenues? In the
 second year of your praetorship the Tissans are compelled against their will to give
 twenty-one thousand sesterces as a compliment. In
 the third year they were compelled to give thirty thousand medimni of wheat to Diognotus, a slave of Venus, as a compliment! This
 Diognotus, who is making such vast profits out of the public revenues, has no
 deputy, no peculium at all. Doubt now, if you can,
 whether this Venereal officer of Verres received such an immense quantity of corn
 for himself, or exacted it for his master.

And learn this also from the public testimony of the Tissans. [The public
 testimony of the Tissans is read.] Is it only obscurely, O judges, that the praetor
 himself is the farmer, when his officers exact corn from the cities, levy money on
 them, take something more as a compliment for themselves than they are to pay over
 to the Roman people under the name of tenths? This was your idea of equity in your
 command—this was your idea of the dignity of the praetor, to make the slaves of
 Venus the lords of the Sicilian people. This was the line drawn, these were the
 distinctions of rank, while you were the praetor, that the cultivators of the soil
 were to be considered in the class of slaves, the slaves in the light of farmers of
 the revenue.

What more shall I say? Were not the wretched people of Amestratus, after such vast
 tenths had been imposed upon them, that they had nothing left for themselves, still
 compelled to pay money besides? The tenths are knocked down to Marcus Caesius in the
 presence of deputies from Amestratus and Heraclius, one of their deputies, is
 compelled at once to pay twenty-two thousand sesterces . What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this
 booty? of this violence? of this plundering of the allies? If Heraclius had been
 commissioned by his senate to purchase the tenths, he would have purchased them; if
 he was not, how could he pay money of his own accord? He reports to his fellow
 citizens that he has paid Caesius this money. Learn his report from his letters.

Read extracts from the public letters. [The public letters are read.] By what
 decree of the senate was this permission given to the deputy? By none. Why did he do
 so? He was compelled. Who says this? The whole city. Read the public testimony. [The
 public testimony is read.] By the same evidence you see that there was extorted from
 the same city in the second year a sum of money in a similar manner, and given to
 Sextus Vennonius. But you compel the Amestratines, needy men, after you have sold
 their tenths for eight hundred medimni to
 Banobalis, a slave of Venus, (just notice the names of the farmers,) to add more
 still as a compliment, than they had been sold for, though they had been sold at a
 high price. They gave Banobalis eight hundred medimni of wheat, and fifteen hundred sesterces . Surely that man would never have been so senseless, as to
 allow more corn to be given out of the domain of the Roman people to a slave of
 Venus than to the Roman people itself, unless all that plunder had, under the name
 of the slave, come in reality to himself.

The people of Petra , though their tenths
 had been sold at a high price, were, very much against their will, compelled to give
 thirty-seven thousand sesterces to Publius Naevius
 Turpio, a most infamous man, who was convicted of assault while Sacerdos was
 praetor. Did you sell the tenths so carelessly, that, when a medimnus cost fifteen sesterces , and
 when the tenths were sold for three thousand medimni , that is, for forty-five thousand sesterces , still three thousand sesterces could be given to the farmer as a compliment? “Oh, but I sold
 the tenths of that district at a high price” he boasts, forsooth, not that a
 compliment was given to Turpio, but that money was taken from the Petrans.

What shall I say next? The Halicyans, the settlers among whom pay tenths,
 themselves have their lauds free from taxes. Were not they also compelled to give to
 the same Turpio fifteen thousand sesterces , when
 their tenths had been sold for a hundred medimni ?
 If, as you are especially anxious to do, you could prove that these compliments all
 went to the farmers, and that none of them reached you, still these sums, taken and
 extorted as they were by your violence and injustice, ought to ensure your
 conviction; but, as you cannot persuade any one that you were so foolish as to wish
 Apronius and Turpio, two slaves, to become rich at your own risk and that of your
 children, do you think that any one will doubt that through the instrumentality of
 those emissaries all this money was really procured for you?

Again, Symmachus, a slave of Venus, is sent as farmer to Segesta, a city exempt
 from such taxes; he brings letters from Verres, to order the cultivators to appear
 in a court of some other city than their own, contrary to every resolution of the
 senate, to all their rights and privileges, and to the Rupilian law. Hear the
 letters which he sent to the Segestans. [The letters of Caius Verres are read.] Now
 learn by one bargain made with an honourable and respected man, how this slave of
 Venus insulted the cultivators of the soil; for there are other instances of this
 sort.

There is a man of the name of Diocles, a citizen of Panormus , surnamed Phimes, an illustrious man,
 and of high reputation as an agriculturist, he rented a farm in the Segestan
 district, (for there are no traders in that place,) for six thousand sesterces ; after having been assaulted by this slave of
 Venus, he settled with him to give him sixteen thousand, six hundred, and sixty-four
 sesterces . You may learn this from Verres's own
 accounts. [The items entered under the name of Diocles of Panormus are read.] Anneius Brocchus also, a
 senator, a man of a reputation, and of a virtue with which you are all acquainted,
 was compelled to give money also besides corn to this same Symmachus. Was such a
 man, a senator of the Roman people, a subject of profit to a slave of Venus, while
 you were praetor?

Even if you were not aware that this body excelled all others in dignity, were you
 not at least aware of this, that it furnished the judges? Previously, when the
 equestrian order furnished the judges, infamous and rapacious magistrates in the
 provinces were subservient to the farmers; they honoured all who were in their
 employ; every Roman knight whom they saw in the province they pursued with
 attentions and courtesies; and that conduct was not so advantageous to the guilty,
 as it was a hindrance to many if they had acted in any respect contrary to the
 advantage or inclination of that body. This sort of principle was somehow or other
 diligently reserved among them as if by common consent, that whoever had thought any
 Roman knight deserving of any affront, was to be considered by their whole order as
 deserving of every possible misfortune.

Did you so despise the order of senators, did you so reduce everything to the
 standard of your own insults and caprices, had you so deliberated and fixed it in
 your own mind as an invariable rule, to reject as judges every one who dwelt in
 Sicily , or who had been in Sicily while you were praetor, that it never
 occurred to you that still you must come before judges of the same order? in whose
 minds, even if there were no indignation from any personal injury done to
 themselves, still there would be this thought, that they were affronted in the
 affront offered to another, and that the dignity of their order was contemptuously
 treated and trampled on, which, O judges, appears to me not to be endured with
 patience, for insult has in it a sting which modest and virtuous men can with
 difficulty put up with.

You have plundered the Sicilians, for indeed the provincials are accustomed to
 obtain no revenge amid their wrongs. You have harassed the brokers, for they seldom
 come to Rome , and never of their own
 accord. You gave up a Roman knight to the ill-treatment of Apronius. To be sure; for
 what harm can they do you now, when they cannot be judges? What will you say when
 you treat senators also with the greatest violence? what else can you say but this,
 “Give me up that senator also, in order that the most honourable name of senator may
 appear to exist not only to excite the envy of the ignorant, but also to attract the
 insults of the worthless.”

Nor did he do this in the case of Anneius alone, but in the instance of every
 senator, so that the name of that order had not so much influence in procuring
 honour as insult for its members. In the case of Caius Cassius, a most illustrious
 and most gallant man, though he was consul at that very time, in the first year of
 his praetorship, he behaved with such injustice, that, as his wife, a woman of the
 highest respectability, had lands in Leontini, inherited from her father, he ordered
 all her crops to be taken away for tenths. You shall have him as a witness in this
 cause, O Verres, since you have taken care not to have him as a judge.

But you, O judges, ought to think that there is some community of interests, some
 close connection existing between the members of our body; many offices are imposed
 on this our order, many toils, many dangers, not only from the laws and courts of
 justice, but also from vague reports, and from the critical character of the times;
 so that this order is, as it were, exposed to view, and set on an eminence, in
 order, as it seems, to be the more easily caught by every blast of envy. In so
 miserable and unfair a condition of life, shall we not retain even the honour of not
 appearing vile and contemptible in the eyes of our own magistrates, when we appear
 before them to obtain our rights?

The men of Thermae sent agents to purchase the tenths of their district. They
 thought it was much better for them, that they should be purchased by their own
 state at ever so high a price, than that they should get into the hands of some
 emissary of his. A man of the name of Venuleius had been put up to buy them. He did
 not cease from bidding. They went on competing with him, as long as the price
 appeared such as could by any possibility be borne. At last they gave up bidding.
 They are knocked down to Venuleius at eight thousand modii of wheat. Possidorus, the deputy of Thermae, sends notice home.
 Although it appeared to every one a most intolerable hardship, still there were
 given to Venuleius eight thousand modii of wheat,
 and two thousand sesterces besides, not to come
 near them. From which it is very evident which part was the wages of the farmer, and
 which the booty of the praetor. Give me the letters and testimony of the people of
 Thermae. [The accounts of the people of Thermae, and their evidence, are read.]

You compelled the Imacharans after you had taken away all
 their corn, after they had been impoverished by your incessant injuries, miserable
 and ruined as they were, to pay tribute so as to give Apronius twenty thousand
 sesterces . Read the decree about the tributes,
 and the public testimony. [The Resolution of the Senate about the tribute to be
 paid, is read. [The testimony of the Imacharans is read.] The people of Enna , though the tenths of
 the territory of Enna had been sold for
 three thousand two hundred medimni , were compelled
 to give Apronius eighteen thousand modii of wheat,
 and three thousand sesterces . I entreat you to
 remark what an enormous quantity of corn is extorted from every district liable to
 the payment of tenths; for my speech extends over every city which is so liable. And
 I am at present engaged about this class of injuries, O judges, in which it is not a
 case of single cultivators being stripped of all their property, but of compliments
 being exacted from the public treasury of each city, for the farmers, in order that
 at last they may depart from the lands and cities glutted and satiated with this
 immense heap of gain.

Why in the third year of your praetorship did you order the Calactans to carry the
 tenths of their land, which they had been accustomed to pay at Calacta, to Marcus
 Caesius the farmer of Amestratus, a thing which they had never done before you were
 praetor, and which you yourself had never ordered in the two years preceding? Why
 was Theomnastus the Syracusan sent by you into the district of Mutyca, where he so
 harassed the cultivators, that for their second teethe they were unavoidably forced
 to buy wheat, because they had actually none of their own, (a thing which I shall
 prove happened also in the case of other cities.)

But now, from the agreements made with the people of Hybla, which were made with
 the farmer Cnaeus Sergius, you will perceive that six times as much corn as was sown
 was exacted of the cultivators Read the accounts of the sowings and the agreements,
 extracted from the public registers. Read. [The agreements of the people of Hybla
 with Cnaeus Sergius, extracted out of the public registers, are read.] Listen also
 to the returns of the sowings, and the agreements of the men of Mena with that slave of Venus. Read them out of the
 public registers. [The returns of the Sowings, arid the agreements of the Menans
 with the servant of Venus, extracted from the public registers, are read.] Will you,
 O judges, endure that a great deal more than has been produced should be exacted
 from our allies, from the cultivators of the domain of the Roman people, from those
 who are labouring for you, are in your service, who are so eager that the Roman
 people should be fed by them, that they only retain for themselves and their
 children enough for their actual subsistence, and should be exacted too with the
 greatest violence, and the most bitter insults?

I feel, O judges, that I must now set some bounds to the length of my speech, and
 that I must avoid wearying you. I will no longer dwell on one kind of injury alone,
 and I will leave the other instances out of my speech, though they will still make a
 part of my accusation. You shall hear the complaints of the Agregentines, most
 gallant, and most industrious men; you shall become acquainted, O judges, with the
 sufferings and the injuries of the Entellans, a people of the greatest perseverance
 and the greatest industry; the wrongs of the men of Heraclea , and Gela , and
 Solentum shall be mentioned: you shall be told of the fields of the Catanians, a
 most wealthy people and most friendly to us, ravaged by Apronius: you shall be made
 aware that the cities of Tyndaris ,
 that most noble city, of Cephalaedis, of Halentia, of Apollonia , of Enguina, of Capitia, have been
 ruined by the iniquity of these farmers; that actually nothing is left to the
 citizens of Ina, of Murgentia, of Assoria, of Elorum, of Enna , and of Ietum; that the people of Cetaria and
 Acheria, small cities, are wholly crushed and destroyed; in short, that all the
 lands liable to the payment of tenths have been for three years tributary to the
 Roman people, to the extent of one tenth of their produce, and to Caius Verres to
 the extent of all the rest; that to most of the cultivators nothing at all is left,
 that if anything was either remitted to or left to any one, it was only just so much
 as remained of that property by which the avarice of that man had bees satiated.

I have reserved the territories of two cities, O judges, to speak of last, the
 best and noblest of all, the territory of Aetna and that of Leontini: I will say nothing of the gains made out
 of these districts in his three years; I will select one year in order that I more
 easily may be able to explain what I have settled to mention. I will take the third
 year, because it is both the most recent, and because it has been managed by him in
 such a way that, since he knew that he was certainly going to depart, he evidently
 did not care if he left behind him not one cultivator of the soil in all Sicily . We will speak of the tenths of the territory
 of Aetna and Leontini. Give heed, O judges,
 carefully. The lands are fertile; it is the third year;

Apronius is the farmer. I will speak a little of the people of Aetna ; for they themselves at the former pleading
 spoke in the name of their city. You recollect that Artemidorus of Aetna , the chief of that deputation, said, in the
 name of his city, that Apronius had come to Aetna with the slaves of Venus; that he had summoned the magistrates
 before him; that he had ordered a couch to be spread for him in the middle of the
 forum; that he was accustomed every day to feast not only in public, but at the
 public expense; that, when at those feasts the concert began to sound, and slaves
 began to serve him with wine in large goblets, then he used to detain the
 cultivators of the soil, and not only with injustice, but even with insolence, to
 extort, from them whatever quantity of corn he had ordered them to supply.

You heard all these things, O judges, all which I now pass by and leave unnoticed.
 I say nothing of the luxury of Apronius, nothing of his insolence, nothing of his
 unexampled profligacy and wickedness; I will only speak of the gain and profit made
 out of one district in one year, so that you may the more easily be able to form
 your conjectures of the whole three years and of the whole of Sicily ; but I do not mean to say much about the
 people of Aetna , for they have come hither
 themselves, they have brought with them their public documents; they have proved to
 you what gains were made by that honest man, the intimate friend of the praetor,
 Apronius. I pray of you learn this from their own testimony. Read the testimony of
 the people of Aetna . [The testimony of the
 people of Aetna is read.] What are you saying? Speak, speak, I pray
 you, louder, that the Roman people may hear about its revenues, its cultivators of
 the soil, its allies, and its friends. “Three hundred thousand medimni ; and fifty thousand sesterces .” Oh, the immortal gods! Does one district in one year years
 three hundred thousand modii of wheat, and fifty
 thousand sesterces besides, as a compliment to
 Apronius? Did the tenths sell for so much less than they were really worth? or,
 though they had been sold at a sufficiently high price, was such a quantity of corn
 and money nevertheless exacted by main force from the cultivators? For whichever of
 these you say was the truth, blame and criminality will attach to it.

For you certainly will not say (what I wish you would say) that this quantity
 never came to Apronius. So I will hold you here, not only by the public covenants
 and letters, but also from the private ones of the cultivators, so as to let you
 understand that you were not mere diligent in executing robberies, than I have been
 in detecting them. Will you be able to bear this? Will any one defend you? Will
 these men be able to endure this, if they are inclined to pronounce a sentence
 favourable to you,—that Quintus Apronius, at one visit, out of one district,
 (besides all the money which was paid him, and which I have mentioned,) should have
 taken three hundred thousand modii of wheat, under
 the name of a compliment?

What! are they the men of Aetna alone who
 say this? Yes, the Centuripans also, who are in occupation of far the largest part
 of the Aetnaean district, to whose ambassadors, most noble men, Andron and Artemon,
 their senate gave commissions which had reference to their city in his public
 capacity, concerning those injuries which the citizens of Centuripa sustained not in
 their own territories, but in those of others. The senate and people of Centuripa
 did not choose to send ambassadors; but the Centuripan cultivators of the soil,
 which is the greatest body of such men in Sicily , a body of most honourable and most wealthy men, themselves
 selected three ambassadors, fellow citizens of their own, in order that by their
 evidence you might be made aware of the calamities, not of one district only, but of
 almost all Sicily . For the Centuripans are
 engaged as cultivators of the soil in almost every part of Sicily . And they are the more important and the more
 trustworthy witnesses against you, because, the other cities ore influenced by their
 own distresses alone, the Centuripans as they occupy land in almost every district,
 have felt the injuries and wrongs of the other cities also.

But as I have said, the case of the men of Aetna is clear enough, and established both by public and by private
 documents. The task allotted to my diligence is to be required of me rather in the
 district of Leontini, for this reason, because the Leontini themselves have not
 assisted me much by their public authority. Nor, in truth, while that fellow was
 praetor, did these injuries of the farmers very greatly affect them, or rather, I
 might say, they did them good. This may, perhaps, appear a marvellous or even an
 incredible thing to you, that in such general distress of the cultivators of the
 soil, the Leontini, who were the heads of the corn interest, should have been free
 from injury and calamity. This is the reason, O judges, that in the territory of
 Leontini, no one of the Leontini, with the exception of the single family of
 Mnasistratus, occupies any land. And so, O judges, you shall hear the evidence of
 Mnasistratus, a most honest and virtuous man. Do not expect to hear any others of
 the Leontini, whom not only Apronius, but whom even a tempest in their fields could
 not injure. They in truth not only suffered no inconvenience, but even in the rapine
 of Apronius they found gain and advantage.

Wherefore, since the city and embassy of the Leontini has failed me on account of
 the cause which I have mentioned, I must devise a plan and contrive a way for myself
 by which I may get at the gain of Apronius, or even at his enormous and wicked
 booty. The tenths of the Leontini territory were sold in the third year of Verres's
 praetorship for thirty-six thousand medimni of
 wheat; that is, for two hundred and twenty-six thousand modii of wheat. A great price, O judges, a great price; and I cannot
 deny it. Therefore it is certain that there must have been a loss, or at all events
 not a great gain to the farmers. For this very often happens to men who have taken a
 contract at a high rate.

What will you think if I prove to you that, by this one purchase, there were made
 a hundred thousand modii of profit? what if it was
 two hundred thousand? what if three? what if four hundred thousand was the sum? Will
 you still doubt for whom that immense booty was acquired? Will any one say that I am
 unfair if from the mere magnitude of the gain made I form a conjecture as to the
 direction of the stolen goods and plunder? What if I prove to you, O judges, that
 those men who are making four hundred thousand modii of profit would have suffered a loss if your iniquity, O Verres,
 if judges of your retinue had not stepped in? Can any one doubt, in a case of so
 much gain and so much iniquity, that you made such immense profit by dishonest
 means? that for such immense gains you were willing to be dishonest?

How then, O judges, am I to arrive at this knowledge of how much profit was made?
 Not from the accounts of Apronius, for when I sought for them, I could not find
 them, and when I brought him into court, I made him deny that he kept any accounts
 at all. If he was telling lies, why did he remove them out of the way, if they were
 likely to do you no harm? If he really had kept any accounts at all, does not that
 alone prove plainly enough, that it was not his own business that he was conducting?
 For it is a quality of tenths, that they cannot be managed without many papers; for
 it is necessary to keep an account of, and to set down in books the names of all the
 cultivators, and with each name the amount of their tenth. All the cultivators made
 returns of their acres according to your command and regulation; I do not believe
 that any one made a return of a smaller quantity than he had in cultivation, when
 there were so many crosses, so many penalties, so many judges of that retinue before
 his eyes. On an acre of Leontini ground about a medimnus of wheat is usually sown, according to the regular and
 constant allowance of seed. The land returns about eightfold on a fair average, but
 in an extraordinarily favourable season, about tenfold. And whenever that is the
 case, it then happens that the tenth is just the same quantity as was sown; that is
 to say, as many acres as are sown, so many medimni 
 are due.

As this was the case, I say first of all, that the tenths of the territory of
 Leontini were sold for many more thousand medimni 
 than there were thousands of acres sown in the district of Leontini. But if it was
 impossible for them to produce more than ten medimni on an acre, and if it was fair that a medimnus should be paid out of each acre liable to the payment of
 tenths, when the land produced a tenfold crop, which however very seldom happened,
 what was the calculation of the farmer if indeed it was the tenths of the cultivator
 that were being sold, and no his whole property, when he bought the tenths for many
 more medimni than there had been acres sown? In the
 Lecutini district the list and return made of acres is not more than thirty
 thousand. The tenths were
 sold for thirty-six thousand medimni . Did Apronius
 make a blunder, or rather was he mad? Yes, he would indeed have been mad if it had
 been lawful for the cultivators to give only what was due from them, and had not
 rather been compulsory on them to give whatever Apronius commanded.

If I prove that no man gave less for his tenths than three medimni to the acre, you will admit, I suppose, that, even supposing
 the produce amounted to a tenfold crop, no one paid less than three tenths. And
 indeed this was begged as a favour from Apronius, that they might be allowed to
 compound at three medimni an acre. For, as four and
 even five were exacted from many people, and as many had not only not a grain of
 corn, but not even a wisp of straw left out of all their crop and after all their
 year's labour; then the cultivators of Centuripa, which are the main body of
 agriculturists in the Leontini district, assembled in one place. They sent as a
 delegate to Apronius, Andron of Centuripa, a man among the first of his state for
 honour and nobility, (the same man whom now the city of Centuripa has sent to this
 trial as a deputy and as a witness,) in order that he might plead with him the cause
 of the cultivators of the soil, and beg of him not to exact of the Centuripan
 cultivators more than three medimni for each acre.

This request was with difficulty obtained from Apronius, as a most excessive
 kindness to those men who were even then safe. And when this was obtained, this is
 what was obtained, forsooth, that they might be allowed to pay three tenths instead
 of one. But if your own interest had not been at stake in the matter, O Verres, they
 would rather have entreated you not to be made to pay more than one tenth, than have
 begged of a promise not to be made to pay more than three. Now, that at the present
 time I may pass over those rules which Apronius, in a kingly, or rather in a
 tyrannical spirit, made with respect to the cultivators, and that I may not at
 present call those men from whom he took all their corn, and to whom he left nothing
 not only of their corn, but nothing even of their property; just see how much gain
 is made of these three medimni , which he considered
 as a great favour and indulgence.

The return of acres in the district of Leontini is thirty thousand. This amounts
 to ninety thousand medimni of wheat that is to say,
 to five hundred and forty thousand modii of wheat.
 Deduct two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of
 wheat, being what the tenths were sold for, and there remain three hundred and
 twenty-four thousand modii of wheat; add to the sum
 total of five hundred and forty thousand modii 
 three fiftieths, that is to say, thirty-two thousand four hundred modii of wheat, (for three fiftieths besides were exacted
 from every one;) this now amounts to three hundred and fifty-six thousand four
 hundred modii of wheat. But I said that four
 hundred thousand sesterces of profit had been made.
 For I do not include in this calculation those who were not allowed to compound at
 three medimni an acre. But that by this present
 calculation I may make out the sum which I promised to do, many were compelled
 besides to pay two sesterces , and many even five,
 with each medimnus , and those who had to pay least
 paid a sesterce with every medimnus . To take the
 least of these sums, as we calculated there were ninety thousand medimni , we must add to that, according to this new and
 infamous example here given, ninety thousand sesterces .

Will he now dare to tell me, that he sold the tenths at a high price, when he took
 for himself more than twice as much as he sent to the Roman people out of the same
 district? You sold the tenths of the Leontine district for two hundred and sixteen
 thousand modii of wheat? If you did so according to
 law, it was a fine price; if your caprice was the law, it was a low price; if you
 sold them so that those were called tenths which were in reality a half, you sold
 them at a very low price. For the yearly produce of all Sicily might be sold for much more, if that was what the senate or
 people of Rome had desired you to do.
 Indeed, the tenths were often sold for as much, when they were sold according to the
 law of Hiero, as they have been sold for now under the law of Verres. Let me have
 the accounts of the sale of tenths under Caius Norbanus. [The account of the sale of
 the tenths in the Leontine district under Caius Norbanus is read.] And yet, then, there were no trials about the return of acres; nor
 was Artemidorus Cornelius a judge, nor did a Sicilian magistrate exact from a
 cultivator whatever the farmer demanded; nor was it entreated as a favour from the
 farmer to be allowed to compound at three medimni 
 an acre; nor was a cultivator obliged to give an additional present of money, nor to
 add three-fiftieths of corn. And yet a area, quantity of corn was sent to the Roman
 people.

But what is the meaning of these fiftieths? what is the meaning of these
 additional presents of money? By what right, and, what is more, in what manner did
 you do this The cultivator gave the money. How or whence did he get it? If he had
 wished to be very liberal, he would have used a more heaped up measure, as men
 formerly used to do in the matter of the tenths, when they were sold by fair laws,
 and on fair terms. He gave the money. Where did he get it? from his corn? As if,
 while you were praetor, he had anything to sell. Something, then, must be taken from
 his principal, in order to add this pecuniary gratuity for Apronius to all the
 profit which he derived from the lands. The next thing is, Did they give it
 willingly or unwillingly? Willingly? They were very fond, I suppose, of Apronius.
 Unwillingly? How, then, were they compelled to do so, except by violence and
 ill-treatment? Again; that man, that most senseless man, in the selling of the
 tenths, caused additional sums to be added to every tenth. It was not much; he added
 two or three thousand sesterces . In the three years
 he made about five hundred thousand sesterces . He
 did this neither according to any precedent, nor by any right; nor did he make any
 return of that money; nor can any man ever imagine how he is going to defend himself
 against this petty charge.

And, as this is the case, do you dare to say that you sold
 the tenths at a high price, when it is evident that you sold the property and
 fortunes of the cultivators, not for the cake of the Roman people, but with a view
 to your own gain. As if any steward, from a farm which had been used to produce ten
 thousand sesterces , having cut down and sold the
 trees, having taken away the buildings and the stock, and having driven off all the
 cattle, sent his master twenty thousand sesterces 
 instead of ten, and made a hundred thousand more for himself. At first the master,
 not knowing the injury that had been done to him, would be glad, and be delighted
 with his steward, because he had got so much more profit out of the farm; but
 afterwards, when he heard that all those things on which the profit and cultivation
 of his farm depends have been removed and sold, he would punish his steward with the
 greatest severity, and think himself very ill used. So also, the Roman people, when
 it hears that Caius Verres has sold the tenths for more than that most innocent man,
 Caius Sacerdos, whom he succeeded, thinks that it has got a good steward and
 guardian over its lands and crops; but when it finds out that he has sold all the
 stock of the cultivators, all the resources of the revenue, and has destroyed all
 the hopes of their posterity by his avarice,—that he has devastated and drained the
 allotments and the Lands subject to tribute,—that he has made himself most enormous
 gain and booty,—it will perceive that it has been shamefully treated, and will think
 that man worthy of the severest punishment.

By what, then, can this be made evident? Chiefly by this fact, that the land of
 the province of Sicily liable to the
 payment of tenths is deserted through the avarice of that man. Nor does it happen
 only that those who have remained on their lands are now cultivating a smaller
 number of acres, but also very many rich men, farmers on a large scale, and skillful
 men, have deserted large and productive farms, and abandoned their whole allotments.
 That may be very easily ascertained from the public documents of the states; because
 according to the law of Hiero the number of cultivators is every year entered in the
 books by public authority before the magistrates. Read now how many cultivators of
 the Leontine district there were when Verres took the government. Eighty-three. And
 how many made returns in his third year? Thirty-two. I see that there were fifty-one
 cultivators so entirely got rid of that they had no successors. How many cultivators
 were there of the district of Mutyca, when you arrived? Let us see from the public
 documents. A hundred and eighty-eight. How many in your third year? A hundred and
 one. That one district has to regret eighty-seven cultivators, owing to that man's
 ill-treatment, and to that extent our republic has to regret the loss of so many
 heads of families, and demands them back at his hand, since they are the real
 revenues of the Roman people. The district of Herbita had in his first year two
 hundred and fifty-seven cultivators; in his third, a hundred and twenty. From this
 region a hundred and thirty-seven heads of families have fled like banished men. The
 district of Agyrium—what men lived in that land! how honourable, how wealthy they
 were? —had two hundred and fifty cultivators in the first year of your praetorship.
 What had it in the third year? Eighty,—as you have heard the Agyrian deputies read
 from their public documents.

O ye immortal gods! If you had driven away out of the whole of Sicily a hundred and seventy cultivators of the
 soil, could you, with impartial judges, escape condemnation? When the one district
 of Agyrium is less populous by a hundred
 and seventy cultivators, will not you, O judges, form your conjectures of the state
 of the whole province? And you will find nearly the same state of things in every
 district liable to the payment of tenths, and that those to whom anything has been
 left out of a large patrimony, have remained behind with a much smaller stock, and
 cultivating a much smaller number of acres, because they were afraid, if they
 departed, that they should lose all the rest of their fortunes; but as for those to
 whom he had left nothing remaining which they could lose, they have fled not only
 from their farms, but from their cities. The very men who have remained—scarcely a
 tenth part of the old cultivators of the soil—were about to leave all their lands
 too, if Metellus had not sent letters to them from Rome , saying that he would sell the tenths according to the law of
 Hiero; and if he had not entreated them to sow as much land as they could, which
 they had always done for their own sakes, when no one entreated them, as long as
 they understood that they were sowing, and labouring, and going to expense for
 themselves and for the Roman people,—not for Verres and Apronius.

But now, O judges, if you neglect the fortunes of the Sicilians,—if you show no
 anxiety about the treatment the allies of the Roman people receive from our
 magistrates,—at all events undertake and defend the common cause of the Roman
 people. I say that the cultivators have been driven out,—that the lands subject to
 tribute have been devastated and drained by Verres—that the whole province has been
 depopulated and tyrannised over. All these things I prove by the public documents of
 the cities, and by the private evidence of most unimpeachable men. What would you have more? Do you wait
 till Lucius Metellus, who by his commands and by his power has deterred many
 witnesses from appearing against Verres shall himself, though absent, bear testimony
 to his wickedness, and dishonesty, and audacity? I think not. But he, who was his
 successor, has had the best opportunity of knowing the truth. That is true, but he
 is hindered by his friendship for him. Still, he ought to inform us accurately in
 what state the province is. He ought, still he is not forced to do so.

Does any one require the evidence of Lucius Metellus against Verres? No one. Does
 any one demand it? I think not What, however, if I prove by the evidence and letters
 of Lucius Metellus that all these things are true? What will you say then? That
 Metellus writes falsely? or that he is desirous of injuring his friend? or that he,
 though he is praetor, does not know in what state the province is? Read the letters
 of Lucius Metellus, which he sent to Cnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, the
 consuls, those which he sent to Marcus Mummius, the praetor, those which he sent to
 the quaestors of the city. [The letter of Lucius Metellus is read.] “I sold the
 tenths according to the law of Hiero.” When he writes that he had sold them
 according to the law of Hiero, what is he writing? Why, that he had sold them as all
 others had done, except Verres. When he writes that he had sold them according to
 the law of Hiero, what is he writing? Why, that he had restored the privileges
 granted to the Sicilians by the kindness of our ancestors and taken away by Verres,
 and their rights, and the terms on which they became our allies and friends. He
 mentions at what price he sold the tenths of each district. After that what does he
 write?

Read the rest of the letter.—“The greatest pains has been taken by me to sell the
 tenths for as good a price as possible.” Why then, O Metellus, did you not sell them
 for as much as Verres? “Because I found the allotments deserted, the fields empty,
 the province in a wretched and ruined condition.” What? And as for the land that was
 sown, how was any one found to sow it? Read the letters. [The letters are read.] He
 says that he had sent letters, and that, when he arrived, he had given a positive
 promise; he had interposed his authority to prevail on them, and had all but given
 hostages to the cultivators that he would be in no respect like Verres But what is
 this about which he says that he took so much pains? Read—“To prevail on the
 cultivators of the soil, who were left, to sow as largely as they could.” Who were
 left? What does this mean—left? After what war? after what devastation? What mighty
 slaughter was there in Sicily , or what was
 there of such duration and such disaster while you were praetor, that your successor
 had to collect and recover the cultivators who were left?

When Sicily was harassed in the
 Carthaginian wars, and afterwards, in our fathers' and our own recollection, when
 great bands of fugitive slaves twice occupied the province, still there was no
 destruction of the cultivators of the soil; then, if the sowing was hindered, or the
 crop lost, the yearly revenue was lost too, but the number of owners and cultivators
 of the land remained undiminished. Then those officers who succeeded the praetors
 Marcus Laevinus, or Publius Rupilius, or Marcus Aquillius in that province, had not
 to collect the cultivators who were left. Did Verres and Apronius bring so much more
 distress on the province of Sicily than
 either Hasdrubal with his army of Carthaginians, or Athenio with his numerous bands
 of runaway slaves, that in those times, as soon as the enemy was subdued, all the
 land was ploughed, and the praetor had not to send letters to beg the cultivator to
 come to him, and entreat him to sow as much land as he could; but now, even after
 the departure of this most ill-omened pestilence, no one could be found who would
 till his land of his own free-will; and very few were left to return to their farms
 and their own familiar household gods, even when urged by the authority of Lucius
 Metellus?

Do not you feel, O most audacious and most senseless of omen, that you are
 destroyed by these letters? Do you not see that, when your successor addresses those
 agriculturists who are left, he writes this in express words, that they are left,
 not after war or after any calamity of that sort, but after your wickedness, and
 tyranny, and avarice, and cruelty? Read the rest—“But still in such quantities as
 the difficulty of the times and the poverty of the cultivators permitted.” The
 poverty of the cultivators, he says. If I, as the accuser, were to dwell so
 repeatedly on the same subject, I should be afraid of wearying your attention, O
 judges; but Metellus cries out, “If I had not written letters.” That is not
 enough—“If I had not, when on the spot, assured them.” Even that is not enough—“The
 cultivators who were left,” he says. Left? In that mournful word he intimates the
 condition of nearly the whole province of Sicily . He adds, “the poverty of the cultivators.”

Wait a little, O judges, wait a little, if you can, for confirmation of my speech.
 I say that the cultivators have been driven away by that man's avarice: Metellus
 writes word that those who were left have been reassured by him. I say that the
 fields have been abandoned, and the allotments deserted: Metellus writes word that
 there is great penury among the cultivators. When he writes this, he shows that the
 allies and friends of the Roman people have been cast down, and driven off, and
 stripped of all their fortunes; and yet if any calamity had happened to these men by
 his means, even without any injury to our revenues, you ought to punish him,
 especially while judging according to that law which was established for the sake of
 the allies. But when our allies are oppressed and ruined, and the revenues of the
 Roman people diminished at the same time,—when our supplies of corn and provisions,
 our wealth, and the safety of the city and of our armies for the future is destroyed
 by his avarice, at least have a regard to the advantage of the Roman people, if you
 have no anxiety to show your regard for our most faithful allies.

And that you may be aware that man had no consideration for either the revenue or
 for our posterity, in comparison with present gain and booty, see what Metellus
 writes at the end:—“I have taken care of the revenues for the future.” He says that
 he has taken care of the revenues for the future. He would not write that he had
 taken care of the revenues, if he had not meant to show this, that you had ruined
 the revenues. For what reason was there for Metellus taking care for the future of
 the revenues in respect of the tenths, and of the whole corn interest, if that man
 had not diverted the revenues of the Roman people to his own profit And Metellus
 himself, who is taking care of the revenues for the future, who is reassembling the
 cultivators of the soil who are left, what does he effect but this, to make those
 men plough, if they can, to whom Verres's satellite Apronius has hardly left one
 plough remaining, but who yet remained on their land in the hope and expectation of
 Metellus? What more? What became of the rest of the Sicilians? What became of that
 numerous body of cultivators who were not only driven away from their farms, but who
 even fled from their cities, from the province, having had all their property and
 all their fortunes taken from them? By what means can they be recalled? How many
 praetors of incorruptible wisdom will be required to re-establish, in process of
 time, that multitude of cultivators in their farms and their habitations?

And that you may not marvel that so great a multitude has fled, as you find, from
 the public documents and from the returns of the cultivators, has fled, know that
 his cruelty and wickedness towards the cultivators was so excessive, (it is an
 incredible statement to make, O judges, but it is both a fact, and one that is
 notorious over all Sicily ,) that men, on
 account of the insults and licentiousness of the collectors, actually killed
 themselves. It is proved that Diocles of Centuripa, a wealthy man, hung himself the
 very day that it was announced that Apronius had purchased the tenths. A man of high
 birth, Archonidas of Elorum, said that Dyrrachinus, the first man of his city, slew
 himself in the same way, when he heard that the collector had made a return, that,
 according to Verres's edict, he owed him a sum that he could not make good at the
 expense of all his property. Now you, though you always were
 the most dissolute and cruel of all mortals, still you never would have allowed,
 (because the groanings and lamentations of the province brought danger on your own
 head,)—you would never, I say, have allowed men to seek refuge from your injustice
 in hanging and death, if the matter had not tended to your profit and to your own
 acquisition of booty.

What! would you have suffered it? Listen, O judges; for I must strive with all my
 sinews, and labour earnestly to make all men perceive how infamous, how evident, how
 undeniable a crime they are seeking to efface by means of money. This is a grave
 charge, a serious charge,—it is the most serious one which has been made in the
 memory of man, ever since trials for peculation and extortion were first
 instituted,—that a praetor of the Roman people has had collectors of the tenths for
 his partners. It is not
 the case that a private individual is now for the first time having this charge
 brought against him by an enemy, or a defendant by his accuser. Long ago, while
 sitting on his seat of justice as praetor, while he had the province of Sicily , when he was not only feared (as is common)
 on account of his absolute power, but also on account of its cruelty, (which is his
 especial characteristic,) he heard this charge urged against him a thousand times,
 when it was not carelessness which delayed him from avenging it, but the
 consciousness of his wickedness and avarice that kept him in check. For the
 collectors used to say openly, and, above all the rest, that one who had the
 greatest influence with him, and who was laying waste the most extensive districts,
 Apronius, that very little of these immense gains came to them, that the praetor was
 their partner.

When the collectors were in the habit of saying this all over the province, and
 mixing up your name with so base and infamous a business, did it never come into
 your mind to take care of your own character? Did it never occur to you to look to
 your liberty and fortunes? When the terror of your name was constantly present to
 the ears and minds of the cultivators,—when the collectors made use, not of their
 own power, but of your wickedness and your name to compel the cultivators to come to
 terms with them,—Did you think that there would be any tribunal at Rome so profligate, so abandoned, so mercenary that
 any protection from its judgment would be found for you?—when it was notorious that,
 when the tenths had been sold contrary to the regulations, the laws, and the customs
 of all men, the collectors, while employed in seizing the property and fortunes of
 the cultivators, were used to say that the shares were yours, the affair yours, the
 plunder yours; and that you said nothing, and though you could not conceal that you
 were aware of it, were still able to bear and endure it, because the magnitude of
 the gain obscured the magnitude of the danger, and because the desire of money had a
 good deal more influence over you than the fear of judgment.

Be it so; you cannot deny the rest. You have not even left yourself this resource,
 to be able to say that you heard nothing of this,—that no mention of your infamy
 ever came to your ears; for the cultivators were complaining with groans and tears.
 Did you not know it? The whole province was loud in its indignation. Did no one tell
 you of it? Complaints were being made of your injuries, and meetings held on the
 subject at Home,—were you ignorant of this? Were you ignorant of all these facts?
 What? when Publius Rubrius summoned Quintus Apronius openly at Syracuse in your hearing, at a great assembly
 of the people, to be bound over to stand a trial, offering to prove, “that Apronius
 had frequently said that you were his partner in the affair of the tenths.” Did not
 these words strike you? did they not agitate you? did they not arouse you to take
 care of your own liberty and fortunes? You were silent; you even pacified their
 quarrel; you took pains to prevent the trial from coming on. O ye immortal gods! could either an
 innocent man have endured this? or would not even a man ever so guilty, if it were
 only because he thought that there might be a trial at Rome hereafter, have endeavoured by some dissimulation to study his
 character in the eyes of men?

What is the case? A wager is offered about a matter affecting your position as a
 free citizen, and your fortunes. Do you sit still and say nothing? do not you follow
 up the matter? do not you persevere? do not you ask to whom Apronius said it? who
 heard him? whence it arose? how it was stated to have happened If any one had
 whispered in your ear, and told you that Apronius was in the habit of saying that
 you were his partner, you ought to have been roused, to have summoned Apronius, and
 not to have been satisfied yourself with him, till you had satisfied the opinion of
 others with respect to yourself. But when in the crowded forum, in a great concourse
 of people, this charge was urged, in word and presence indeed, against Apronius, but
 in reality against you, could you ever have received such a blow in silence, unless
 you had decided that, say what you would in so evident a case, you would only make
 the matter worse?

Many men have dismissed quaestors, lieutenants, prefects, and tribunes, and
 ordered them to leave the province, because they thought that their own reputation
 was being injured through their misconduct, or because they considered that they
 were behaving ill in some particular. Would you never have addressed Apronius, a man
 scarcely a free man, profligate, abandoned, infamous, who could not preserve, I will
 not say an honest mind, but not even a pure soul, with even one harsh word, and that
 too when smarting under disgrace and insult yourself? And moreover, the respect due
 to a partnership would not have been so sacred in your eyes as to make you
 indifferent to the danger you were in, if you had not seen the matter was so well
 known and so notorious to every one.

Publius Scandilius, a Roman knight, whom you are all acquainted with, did
 afterwards adopt the same legal proceedings against this same Apronius respecting
 that partnership, which Rubrius had wished to adopt. He urged them on; he pressed
 it, he gave him no respite; security was given to the amount of five thousand
 sesterces ; Scandilius began to demand
 recuperators or a judge. 
 Does not this wicked praetor seem to be hemmed in now within sufficiently narrow
 bounds in his own province, yes, and even on his own throne and tribunal; so that he
 must either while present and sitting on the bench allow a trial to proceed
 affecting his own liberty, or else confess that he must be convicted by every
 tribunal in the world? The trial is on this formula, “that Apronius says that you
 are his partner in the matter of the tenths.” The province is yours; you are
 present, judgment is demanded from you yourself. What do you do? What do you decree?
 You say that you will assign judges. You do well; though where will there be found
 judges of such courage as to dare, in his province, when the praetor himself is
 present, to decide in a manner not only contrary to his with, but adverse even to
 his fortunes?

However, be it so; the case is evident; there was no one who did not say that he
 had heard this distinctly; all the most respectable men were most undoubted
 witnesses of it; there was no one in all Sicily who did not know that the tenths
 belonged to the praetor, no one who had not heard Apronius frequently say so;
 moreover, there was a fine body of settlers at Syracuse , many Roman knights, men of the highest consideration, out
 of which number the judges must be selected, who could not possibly decide in any
 other manner. Scandilius does not cease to demand judges; then that innocent man,
 who was so eager to efface that suspicion, and to remove it from himself, says that
 he will assign judges from his own retinue.

In the name of the good faith of gods and men, who is it that I am accusing? in
 whose case am I not desirous that my industry and diligence should be proved? What
 is it that I sought to effect and obtain by speaking and meditating on this matter?
 I have hold, I have hold I say, in the middle of the revenues of the Roman people,
 in the very crops of the province of Sicily , of a thief, manifestly embezzling the whole revenue derived
 from the corn, an immense sum: I have hold of him; so I say that he cannot deny it.
 For what will he say? Security has been entered into for a prosecution against your
 agent Apronius, in a matter in which all your fortunes are at stake—on the charge of
 having been in the habit of saying that you were his partner in the tenths. All men
 are waiting to see how anxious you will be about this, how you will endeavour to
 give men a favourable opinion of you and of your innocence. Will you here appoint as
 judges your physician, and your soothsayer, and your crier, or even that man whom
 you had in your train, in case there was any affair of importance, a judge like
 Cassius, Papirius Potamo, a severe man of the old equestrian school? Scandilius
 began to demand judges from the body of settlers; then Verres says that he will not
 entrust a trial in which his own character is at stake, to any one except his own
 people. The brokers think it a scandalous thing for a man to protest against, as
 unjust to himself, that form in which they transact their business. The praetor
 protests against the whole province as unjust to him.

Oh, unexampled impudence! Does he demand to be acquitted at Rome , who has decided in his own province that it
 is impossible that he should be acquitted? who thinks that money will have a greater
 influence over senators most carefully chosen, than fear will over three judges? But
 Scandilius says that he will not say a word before a judge like Artemidorus, and
 still he presses the matter on, and loads you with favourable conditions, if you
 choose to avail yourself of them. If you decide that, in the whole province of
 Sicily , no capable judge or recuperator
 can be found, he requires of you to refer the matter to Rome ; and on this you exclaim that the man is a
 dishonest man, for demanding a trial in which your character is at stake to take
 place in a place where he knows that you are unpopular.

You say you will not send the case to Rome . You say that you will not appoint judges out of the body of
 settlers; you put forward your own retinue. Scandilius says that he shall abandon
 the whole affair for the present, and return at his own time. What do you say to
 that? what do you do? you compel Scandilius to do what? to prosecute the matter
 regularly? In a shameless manner you put an end to the long-expected trial of your
 character; you do not do that—what do you do, then?

Do you permit Apronius to select what judges he chooses out of your retinue? It is
 a scandalous thing that you should give one of the parties a power of selecting
 judges from that worthless crew, rather than give both a power of rejecting judges
 from a respectable class. You do neither of those things—what then? Is there
 anything more abominable that can be done? Yes; for he compels Scandilius to give
 and pay over that five thousand sesterces to
 Apronius. What neater thing could be done by a praetor desirous of a fair
 reputation,—one who was anxious to repel from himself all suspicion, and to deliver
 himself from infamy? He
 had been a common topic of conversation, of reproach, of abuse. A worthless and
 debauched man had been in the habit of saying that the praetor was his partner. The
 master had come before the courts, had come to trial; he, upright and innocent man
 that he was, had an opportunity, by punishing Apronius, of relieving himself from
 the most serious disgrace. What punishment does he devise? what penalty for
 Apronius? He compels Scandilius to pay to Apronius five thousand sesterces , as reward and wages for his unprecedented
 rascality, his audacity, and his proclamation of this wicked partnership.

What difference did it make, O most audacious man, whether you made this decree,
 or whether you yourself made that profession and declaration concerning yourself
 which Apronius was in the habit of making? The man whom, if there had been shame,
 yes, if there had even been any fear in you, you ought not to have let go without
 punishment, you could not allow to come off without a reward. You might see the
 truth in every case, O judges, from this single affair of Scandilius. First of all,
 that this charge about the partnership in the tenths was not cooked up at Rome , was not invented by the accuser; it was not
 (as we are accustomed sometimes to say in making a defence for a man) a domestic or
 back-stairs accusation; it was not originated in a time of your danger, but it was
 an old charge, bruited about long ago, when you were praetor, not made up at
 Rome by your enemies, but brought to
 Rome from the province.

At the same time his great favour to Apronius may be clearly seen; also the, I
 will not say confession, but the boast of Apronius, about him. Besides all this, you
 can rake as clearly proved this first, that, in his own province, he would not
 entrust a trim in which his reputation was at stake, to any one out of his own
 retinue. Is there any
 judge who has not been convinced, from the very beginning of my accusation
 respecting the collection of tenths, that he had made an attack on the property and
 fortunes of the cultivators of the soil? Who is there who did not at once decide,
 from what I then proved, that he had sold the tenths under a law quite novel, and,
 therefore, no law at all, contrary to the usage and established regulations of all
 his predecessors?

But even if I had not such judges as I have, such impartial, such careful, such
 conscientious judges, is there any one whatever who has not long ago formed his
 opinion and his judgment from the magnitude of the injuries done, the dishonesty of
 the decrees, the iniquity of the tribunals? Even although a man may be somewhat
 careless in judging,—somewhat indifferent to the laws, to his duty to the republic,
 to our allies and friends, what then? Can even such a man doubt of the dishonesty of
 that man, when he is aware that such vast gains were made,—such iniquitous
 compromises extorted by violence and terror?—when he knows that cities were
 compelled by violence and imperious commands, by the fear of scourges and death, to
 give such great rewards, not only to Apronius and to men like him, but even to the
 slaves of Venus?

But if any one is but little influenced by the injuries done to our allies,—if
 there be any one who is not moved by the flight, the calamities, the banishment, and
 the suicides of the cultivators of the soil; still I cannot doubt that the man who
 knows, both from the documents of the cities and the letter of Lucius Metellus, that
 Sicily has been laid waste and the farms
 deserted, must decide that it is quite impossible that any other than the severest
 judgment should be passed on that man. Will there be any one who can conceal from
 himself, or be indifferent to these facts? I have brought before you trials
 commenced respecting the partnership in the tenths, but prevented by that man from
 being brought to a decision. What is there that any one can possibly desire plainer
 than this? I have no doubt that I have satisfied you, O judges. But I will go
 further; not, indeed, in order that this may be proved more completely to your
 satisfaction than I feel sure that it already is, but that he may at last give over
 his impudence,—may cease at Last to believe that he can purchase these things which
 he himself was always ready to sell his good faith, his oath, truth, duty, and
 religion;—that his friends may cease to keep continually saying things which may be
 injury, a stain, and odium, and infamy to all of us.

But what friends are they? Alas, the order of senators! wretched, and unpopular,
 and detested through the fault and unworthiness of a few! That Alba Aemilius,
 sitting at the entrance of the market, should say openly that Verres had gained his
 cause,—that he had bought the judges, one for four hundred thousand sesterces , another for five, the one who who went
 cheapest, for three! And when he was answered that that was impossible; that many
 witnesses would give evidence, and besides, that I should not desert the
 cause,—“Though,” said he, “every one were to make every possible statement against
 him, still, unless the matter be brought home to him so evidently that no answer can
 be given, we have gained the cause.”

You say well, Alba. I will agree to your conditions. You think that conjecture
 avails nothing at a trial,—that suspicion avails nothing,—that the character of
 one's previous life avails nothing,—nor the evidence of virtuous men,—nor the
 authority or letters of cities. You demand evident proof I do not ask for judges
 like Cassius. I do not ask for the ancient impartiality of courts of justice. I do
 not, O judges, implore your good faith, your self-respect, your conscientiousness in
 giving judgment. I will take Alba for my judge; that man who is himself desirous of
 being considered an unprincipled buffoon: who by the buffoons has always been
 considered as a gladiator, rather than as a buffoon. I will bring forward such a
 case about the tenths that Alba shall confess that Verres, in the case of the corn,
 and in that of the property of the cultivators of the soil has been an open and
 undisguised robber.

He says that he sold the tenths of the Leontine district at a high price. I showed
 at the beginning that he ought not to be considered to have sold them at a high
 price' who in name indeed sold the tenths, but who in reality and by the terms of
 the sale, and through his law, and through his edict, and through the licentiousness
 of the collectors, left no tenths at all to the cultivators of the soil. I proved
 that also, that others had sold the tenths of the Leontine district and of other
 districts also, for a high price; and that they had sold them according to the law
 of Hiero; and that they sold them for even more than you had, and that then no
 cultivator had complained. Nor indeed was there anything of which any one could
 complain, when they were sold according to a law most equitably framed; nor did it
 ever make any difference to the cultivator at what price the tenths were sold. For
 it is not the case that, if they be sold at a high price, the cultivator owes more,
 if at a low price, less. As the crops are produced, so are the tenths sold. But it
 is for the interest of the cultivator, that his crops should be such that the tenths
 may be able to be sold at as high a price as possible. As long as the cultivator
 does not give more than a tenth, it is for his interest that the tenth should be as
 large as possible.

But, I imagine, you mean this to be the chief article of your defence, that you
 sold all the tenths at a high price, but the tenths of the Leontine district, which
 produces the most, for two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of wheat. If I prove that you could have sold them for a good
 deal more, but that you would not knock them down to those who were bidding against
 Apronius, and that you adjudged them to Apronius for much less than you might have
 adjudged them to others;—if I prove this, will even Alba, not only your oldest
 friend, out even your lover, be able to acquit you? I assert that a Roman knight, a man of the highest
 honour, Quintus Minucius, with others like himself, was willing to add to the tenths
 of the Leontine district not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousand
 modii of wheat, but thirty thousand modii of wheat to the tenths of one single district, and
 that he was not allowed to become the purchaser, that the matter might not escape
 the grasp of Apronius.

You cannot by any means deny this, unless you are determined to deny everything.
 The business was transacted openly, in a full assembly, at Syracuse . The whole province is the witness,
 because men are accustomed to flock together thither from all parts at the sale or
 the tenths. And whether you confess this, or whether it be proved against you, do
 you not see in what important and what evident acts you are detected. First of all,
 it is proved that that business and that booty was yours. For unless it was, why did
 you prefer that Acronius (who every one was saying was only managing your affairs in
 the matter of the tenths as your agent) should get the tenths of the Leontine
 district rather than Quintus Minucius? Secondly, that an enormous and immense profit
 was made by you. For if you would not have been influenced by thirty thousand
 modii of wheat, at all events Minucius would
 willingly have given thus much as a compliment to Apronius, if he had been willing
 to accept it.

How great then must we suppose the expectation of booty which he entertained to
 have been, when he despised and scorned such vast present profit: acquired without
 the slightest trouble. Thirdly, Minucius himself would never have wished to have
 them at such a price, if you had been selling the tenths according to the Law of
 Hiero; but because he saw that by your new edicts and most iniquitous resolutions he
 should get a good deal more than tenths, on that account he advanced higher. But
 Apronius had always even a good deal more permitted to him than you had announced in
 your edict. How much gain then can we suppose was made by him to whom everything was
 permitted; when that man was so willing to add so large a compliment, who would not
 have had the same licence if he had bought the tenths?

Lastly, unquestionably that defence, under which you have constantly thought that
 all your thefts and iniquities could be concealed, is cut from under your feet; that
 you sold the tenths at a high price—that you consulted the interest of the Roman
 people—that you provided for plenty of provisions. He cannot say this, who cannot
 deny that he sold the tenths of one district for thirty thousand modii less than he might have done; even if I were to
 grant you this, that you did not grant them to Minucius because you had already
 adjudged them to Apronius; for they say that that is what you are in the habit of
 saying, and I am expecting to hear it, and I wish you would make that defence. But,
 even if it were so, still you cannot boast of this as a great thing, that you sold
 the tenths at a high price, when you admit that there were people who were willing
 to buy them at a much higher price.

The avarice, then, and covetousness of this man, his wickedness, and dishonesty,
 and audacity, are proved, O judges, are proved most incontestably. What more shall I
 say What if his own friends and defenders have formed the same opinion that I have?
 What can you have more? On the arrival of Lucius Metellus the praetor, when Verres
 had made all his retinue friends of this also by that sovereign medicine of his,
 money, men applied to Metellus; Apronius was brought before him; his accuser was a
 man of the highest consideration, Caius Gallius, a senator. He demanded of Metellus
 to give him a right of action according to the terms of his edict against Apronius,
 “for having taken away property by force or by fear,” which formula of Octavius,
 Metellus had both adopted at Rome , and now
 imported into the province. He does not succeed; as Metellus said that he did not
 wish by means of such a trial to prejudge the case of Verres himself in a matter
 affecting his condition as a free citizen. The whole retinue of Metellus, grateful
 men, stood by Apronius. Caius Gallius, a man of our order, cannot obtain from Lucius
 Metellus, his most intimate friend, a trial in accordance with his own edict.

I do not blame Metellus; he spared a friend of his—a connection, indeed, as I have
 heard him say himself. I do not, I say, blame Metellus; but I do marvel how he not
 only prejudged the case of a man concerning whom he was unwilling that any previous
 decision should take place by means of judges, but even judged most severely and
 harshly respecting him. For, in the first place, if he thought that Apronius would
 be acquitted, there was no reason for his fearing any previous decision. In the
 second place, if Apronius were condemned, all men were likely to think that the
 cause of Verres was involved in his; this at all events Metellus did now decide, and
 he determined that their affairs and their causes were identical, since he
 determined that, if Apronius were condemned, it would be a prejudging of the case of
 Verres. And one fact is at the same time a proof of two things; both that the
 cultivators gave much more than they owed to Apronius because they were constrained
 by violence and fear; and also, that Apronius was transacting Verres's business in
 his own name, since Lucius Metellus determined that Apronius could not be condemned
 without giving a decision at the same time respecting the wickedness and dishonesty
 of Verres.

I come now to the letter of Timarchides, his freedman and attendant; and when I
 have spoken of that, I shall have finished the whole of my charge respecting the
 truth This is the letter, O judges, which we found at Syracuse , in the house of Apronius, where we
 were looking for letters. It was sent, as it proves itself, on the journey, when
 Verres had already departed from the province; written by the hand of Timarchides
 Read the letter of Timarchides: “Timarchides, the officer of Verres, wishes health
 to Apronius.” Now I do not blame this which he has written, “The officer.” For why should clerks alone assume to themselves this privilege?
 “Lucius Papirius the clerk,” I should like this signature to be common to all
 attendants, lictors, and messengers. “Be sure and be very diligent in everything which concerns the
 praetor's character.” He recommends Verres to Apronius, and exhorts him to resist
 his enemies; Your reputation is protected by a very efficient guard, if indeed it
 depends on the diligence and authority of Apronius. “You have virtue and eloquence.”

How abundantly Apronius is praised by Timarchides! How splendidly! Whom ought I to
 expect to be otherwise than pleased with that man who is so highly approved by
 Timarchides? “You have ample funds.” It is quite inevitable that what there was
 superfluous of the gain you both made by the corn, must have gone chiefly to the man
 by whose intervention you transacted that business. “Get hold of the new clerks and
 officers. —Use every means that
 offer, in concert with Lucius Vulteius, who has the greatest influence.” See now,
 what an opinion Timarchides has of his own dishonest cunning, when he gives precepts
 of dishonesty to Apronius! Now these words, “Use every means in your power ” —Does not he seem to be drawing words out of his
 master's house, suited to every sort of iniquity? “I beg, my brother, that you will
 trust your own little brother,” your comrade, indeed, in gain and robbery, your
 twin-brother and image in worthlessness, dishonesty, and audacity. “You will be considered dear to the
 retinue.” What does this mean, “to the retinue?” What has that to do with it? Are
 you teaching Apronius? What? had he come into this retinue at your prompting, or of
 his own accord? “Whatever is needful for each man, that employ.” How great, do you
 suppose, must have been the impudence of that man when in power, who even after his
 departure is so shameless? He says that everything can be done by money: you must
 give, waste, and spend, if you wish to gain your cause. Even this, that Timarchides
 should give this advice to Apronius, is not so offensive to me, as the fact of his
 also giving it to his patron: “When you press a request, all men gain their
 objects.”

Yes, while Verres was praetor, not while Sacerdos was, or Peducaeus, or this very
 Lucius Metellus. “You know that Metellus is a wise man.” But this is really
 intolerable, that the abilities of that most excellent man, Lucius Metellus, should
 be laughed at, and despised and scorned by that runaway slave Timarchides. “If you
 have Vulteius with you, everything will be mere child's play to you.” Here
 Timarchides is greatly mistaken, in thinking either that Vulteius can be corrupted
 by money, or that Metellus is going to discharge the duties of his praetorship
 according to the will of any one man; but he is mistaken by forming his conjectures
 from his own experience. Because he saw that, through his own intervention and that
 of others, many men had been able to do whatever they pleased with Verres, without
 meeting with any difficulty, he thought that there were the same means of access to
 every one. You did very easily whatever you wanted with Verres, and found it as easy
 as child's play to do so, because you knew many of the kinds of play in which he
 indulged. “Metellus and Vulteius have been impressed with the idea that you have
 ruined the cultivators of the soil.” Who attributed the action to Apronius, when he
 had ruined any cultivator? or to Timarchides when he had taken money for assigning a
 trial, or making a decree, or giving any order, or remitting any thing? or to Sextus
 the lictor, when he, as executioner, had put an innocent man to death? No one. Every
 body at the time attributed these things to Verres; whom they desire now to see
 condemned.

“People have dinned into their ears, that you were a partner of the praetor's.” Do
 you not see how clear the matter both is and was when even Timarchides is afraid of
 this? Will you not admit that we are not inventing this charge against you, but that
 your freedman has been this long time seeking some defence against this charge? Your
 freedman and officer, one most intimate, and indeed connected with you and your
 children in everything, writes to Apronius, that it is universally pointed out to
 Metellus that Apronius had been your partner in the tenths. “Make him see the
 dishonesty of the cultivators: they shall suffer for it, if the gods will.” What, in
 the name of the immortal gods, is the meaning of that? or on what account can we say
 that such great and bitter hatred is excited against the cultivators? What injury
 have the cultivators of the soil done to Verres, that even his freedman and officer
 should attack them with so inimical a disposition in these letters? And I would not, O judges, have
 read to you the letter of this runaway slave, if I had not wished you to see from it
 the precepts, and customs, and system of the whole household. Do you see how he
 advises Apronius? by what means and by what presents he may insinuate himself into
 the intimacy of Metellus? how he may corrupt Vulteius? how he may win over with
 bribes the clerks and the chief officer? He teaches him what he has himself seen
 done. He teaches a stranger the lessons which he has learnt at home himself. But in
 this one thing he makes a mistake, that he thinks there is the same road to every
 one's intimacy.

Although I am deservedly angry with Metellus, still I will say this which is true.
 Apronius could not corrupt Metellus with bribes, as he had corrupted Verres, nor
 with banquets, nor with women, nor with debauched and profligate conversation, by
 which means he had, I will not say crept into that man's friendship slowly and
 gradually, but had in a very short time got possession of the whole man and his
 whole retinue. But as for the retinue of Metellus, which he speaks of, what was the
 use of his corrupting that, when no judges were appointed out of it to judge the
 causes of the cultivators?

For as for what he writes, that the son of Metellus was a mere boy, he is greatly
 mistaken. For there is not the same access to the son of every praetor. O
 Timarchides, the son of Metellus is in the province, not a boy, but a virtuous and
 modest youth, worthy of his rank and name. How that boy of yours had behaved in the
 province, I would not say if I thought it the fault of the boy, and not the fault of
 his father. Did not you, though you knew yourself and your own habits of life, O
 Verres, take with you your son, still clad in the robes of a boy, into Sicily , so that even if nature had separated the boy
 from his father's vices and from every resemblance to his family, still habit and
 training might prevent his degenerating from them?

Suppose there had been in him the disposition of Caius Laelius, of Marcus Cato,
 still what good could be expected or extracted out of one who has lived in the
 licentious school of his father in such a way that he has never seen one modest or
 sober banquet? who since he has grown up has lived in daily revels for three years
 among immodest women and intemperate men? who has never heard a word from his father
 by which he might become more modest or more virtuous? who has never seen his father
 do anything, which, if he had imitated, would not have laid him under the most
 disgraceful imputation of all, that of being considered like his father?

By which conduct you have done an injury, not only to your son, but also to the
 republic. For you had begotten children, not for yourself alone, but also for your
 country; who might not only be a pleasure to you, but who might some day or other be
 able to be of use to the republic. You ought to have trained and educated them
 according to the customs of your ancestors, and the established system of the state;
 not in your crimes, in your infamy. Were he the able, and modest, and upright son of
 a lazy, and debauched, and worthless father then the republic would have had a
 valuable present from you. Now you have given to the state another Verres instead of
 yourself, if, indeed, he is not worse (If that be possible) in this respect,—that
 you have turned out such as you are without being bred up in the school of a
 dissolute man, but only under a thief, and a go-between.

What can we expect likely to turn out more complete than a person who is by nature
 your son, by education your pupil, by inclination your copyist? Whom, however, I, O
 judges, would gladly see turn out a virtuous and gallant man. For I am not
 influenced by his enmity, if, indeed, there is to be enmity between him and me; for
 if I am innocent and like myself in everything, how will his enmity hurt me? And if,
 in any respect, I am like Verres, an enemy will no more be wanting to me than he has
 been wanting to him. In truth, O judges, the republic ought to be such, and shall be
 such, being established by the impartiality of the tribunals, that an enemy shall
 never be wanting to the guilty, and shall never be able to injure the innocent.
 There is, therefore, no cause why I should not be glad for that son of his to emerge
 out of his father's vices and infamy. And although it may be difficult, yet I do not
 know whether it be impossible; especially if (as is at present the case) the
 guardians placed over him by his friends continue to watch him, since his father is
 so indifferent to him, and so dissolute.

But my speech has now digressed more than I had intended from the letter of
 Timarchides: and I said, that when that had been read, I would end all I had to say
 on the charge connected with the tenths; from which you have clearly seen that an
 incalculable amount of corn has been for these three years diverted from the
 republic, and taken illegally from the cultivators. The next thing is, O judges, for me to explain to you
 the charge about the purchase of corn, a theft very large in amount, and exceedingly
 shameless. And I entreat you to listen while I briefly lay before you my statements,
 being both certain, few in number, and important. It was Verres's duty according to
 a decree of the senate, and according to the law of Terentius and to the law of
 Cassius about corn, to purchase corn in Sicily . There were two descriptions of purchase,—the one the purchase
 of the second tenths, the other the purchase of what was furnished in fair
 proportions by the different cities. Of corn derived from the second tenths the
 quantity would be as much as had been derived from the first tenths; of corn levied
 on the cities in this way there would be eight hundred thousand modii . The price fixed for the corn collected as the
 second tenths was three sesterces a modius ; for that furnished in compliance with the levy,
 four sesterces . Accordingly, for the corn furnished
 in compliance with the levy, there was paid to Verres each year three million two
 hundred thousand sesterces , which he was to pay to
 the cultivators of the soil; and for the second tenths, about nine millions of
 sesterces . And so, during the three years, there
 was nearly thirty-six million six hundred thousand sesterces paid to him for this purchase of corn in Sicily .

This enormous sum of money, given to you out of a poor and exhausted treasury;
 given to you for corn,—that is to say, for what was necessary for the safety and
 life of the citizens; given to you to be paid to the Sicilian cultivators of the
 soil, on whom the republic was imposing such great burdens;—this great sum, I say,
 was so handled by you, that I can prove, if I choose, that you appropriated the
 whole of this money, and that it all went to your own house. In fact, you managed
 the whole affair in such a way that this which I say can be proved to the most
 impartial judge. But I will have a regard for my own authority, I will recollect
 with what feelings, with what intentions I have undertaken the advocacy of this
 public cause. I will not deal with you in the spirit of an accuser; I will invent
 nothing; I do not wish any one to take for proved, while I am speaking, anything of
 which I myself do not already feel thoroughly convinced.

In the ease of this public money, O judges, there are three kinds of thefts. In
 the first place, he put it out among the companies from which it had been drawn at
 twenty-four per cent interest; in the second place, he paid actually
 nothing at all for corn to very many of the cities; lastly, if he did pay any city,
 he deducted as large a sum as ever he chose. He paid no one whatever as much as was
 due to him. And first I
 ask you this—you, to whom the farmers of the revenue, according to the letters of
 Carpinatius, gave thanks. Was the public money, drawn from the treasury, given out
 of the revenues of the Roman people to purchase corn, was it a source of profit to
 you? Did it bring you in twenty-four per cent interest? I dare say you will deny it.
 For it is a disgraceful and dangerous confession to make.

And it is a thing very difficult for me to prove, for by what witnesses am I to
 prove it? By the farmers of the revenue? They have been treated by him with great
 honour they will keep silence. By their letters? They have been put out of the way
 by a resolution of the collectors. Which way then shall I turn? Shall I leave
 unmentioned so infamous a business, a crime of such audacity and such shamelessness,
 on account of a dearth of witnesses or of documentary proofs? I will not do so, O
 judges, I will call a witness. Whom? Lucius Vettius Chilo, a most honourable and
 accomplished man of the equestrian order, who is such a friend of and so closely
 connected with Verres, that, even if he were not an excellent man, still whatever he
 said against him would seem to have great weight; but who is so good a man that,
 even if he were ever so great an enemy to him, yet his testimony ought to be
 believed.

He is annoyed and waiting to see what Vettius will say. He will say nothing
 because of this present occasion; nothing of his free will, nothing of which we can
 think that he might have spoken either way. He sent letters into Sicily to Carpinatius, when he was superintendent of
 the tax derived from the pasture lands, and manager of that company of farmers,
 which letters I found at Syracuse , in
 Carpinatius's house, among the portfolios of letters which had been brought to him;
 and at Rome in the house of Lucius
 Tullius, an intimate friend of yours, and another manager of the company, in
 portfolios of letters which had been received by him. And from these letters
 observe, I pray you, the impudence of this man's usury. [The letters of Lucius
 Vettius to Publius Servilius, and to Caius Antistius, managers of the company, are
 read.] Vettius says that he will be with you, and will take
 notice how you make up your accounts for the treasury; so that, if you do not
 restore to the people this money which has been put out at interest, you shall
 restore it to the company.

Can we not establish what we assert by this witness, can we not establish it by
 the letters of Publius Servilius and Caius Antistius, managers of the company, men
 of the highest reputation and of the highest honour, and by the authority of the
 company whose letters we are using? or must we seek for something on which we can
 rely more, for something more important? Vettius, your most intimate friend,—Vettius, your
 connection, to whose sister you are married,—Vettius, the brother of your wife, the
 brother of your quaestor, bears witness to your most infamous theft, to your most
 evident embezzlement; for by what other name is a lending of the public money at
 usury to be called? Read what follows. He says that your clerk, O Verres, was the
 drawer up of the bond for this usury: the managers threaten him also in their
 letters; in fact, it happened by chance that two managers were with Vettius. They
 think it intolerable that twenty-four per cent should be taken from them, and they
 are right to think so. For whoever did such a thing before? who ever attempted to do
 such a thing,—who ever thought that such a thing could be done, as for a magistrate
 to venture to take money as interest from the farmers, though the senate had often
 assisted the farmers by remitting the interests due from them? Certainly that man
 could have no hope of safety, if the farmers—that is, the Roman knights, were the
 judges.

He ought to have less hope now, O judges, now that you have to decide; and so much
 the less, in proportion as it is more honourable to be roused by the injuries of
 others than by one's own. What reply do you think of making to all this? Will you
 deny that you did it? Will you defend yourself on the ground that it was lawful for
 you to do it? How can you deny it? Can you deny it, to be convicted by the authority
 of such important letters, by so many farmers appearing as witnesses? But how can
 you say it was lawful? In truth, if I were to prove that you, in your own province,
 had lent on usury your own money, and not the money of the Roman people, still you
 could not escape; but when I prove that you lent the public money, the money decreed
 to you to buy corn with, and that you received interest from the farmers, will you
 make any one believe that this was lawful? a deed than which not only others have
 never, but you yourself have never done a more audacious or more infamous one. I
 cannot, in truth, O judges, say that even that which appears to me to be perfectly
 unprecedented, and about which I am going to speak next—I mean, the fact of his
 having actually paid very many cities nothing at all for their corn—was either more
 audacious or more impudent; the booty derived from this act was perhaps greater, but
 the impudence of the other was certainly not less.

And since I have said enough about this lending at interest, now, I pray you, give
 your attention to the question of the embezzlement of the whole sum in many
 instances. There are many
 cities in Sicily , O judges, of great
 splendour and of high reputation, and among the very first of these is the city of
 Halesa. You will find no city more faithful to its duties, more rich in wealth, more
 influential in its authority. After that man had ordered it to furnish every year
 sixty thousand modii of wheat, he took money for
 the wheat, at the price which wheat bore in Sicily at the time; all the money which he thus received from the
 public treasury, he kept for himself. I was amazed, O judges, when a man of the
 greatest ability, of the highest wisdom, and of the greatest influence, Aeneas of
 Halesa, first stated this to me at Halesa in the senate of Halesa; a man to whom the
 senate by public resolution had given a charge to return me and my brother thanks,
 and at the same time to explain to us the matters which concerned this trial.

He proves to me that this was his constant custom and system; that, when the
 entire quantity of corn had been brought to him under the name of tenths, then he
 was accustomed to exact money from the cities, to object to the corn delivered, and
 as for all the corn which he was forced to send to Rome , he sent that quantity from his own profits and from his own
 store of corn. I demand the accounts, I inspect the documents, I see that the people
 of Halesa, from whom sixty thousand modii had bees
 levied, had given none, that they had paid money to Volcatus, and to Timarchides the
 clerk. I find a case of plunder of this kind, O judges, that the praetor, whose duty
 it was to buy corn, did not buy it, but sell it; and that he embezzles and
 appropriates the money which he ought to have divided among the cities. It did not
 appear to me any longer to be a theft, but a monster and a prodigy; to reject the
 corn of the cities, and to approve of his own; when he had approved of his own, then
 to put a price on that corn, to take from the cities what he had fixed, and to
 retain what he had received from the Roman people.

How many degrees of offence in one single act of fraud do you think will be
 enough, if I insist on them severally, to bring the matter to a point where he can
 go no further? You reject the Sicilian corn; why? because you are sending some
 yourself. Have you any Sicily of your own,
 which can supply you corn of another sort? When the senate decrees that corn he
 bought in Sicily , or when the people order
 this, this, as I imagine, is what they mean, that Sicilian corn is to be brought
 from Sicily . When you reject all the corn
 of Sicily , do you send corn to Rome from Egypt or from Syria ? You
 reject the corn of Halesa, of Cephalaedis, of Thermae, of Amestras, of Tyndaris , of Herbita, and of many other cities.
 What has happened then to cause the lands of these people to bear corn of such a
 sort while you were praetor, as they never bore before, so that it can neither be
 approved of by you, nor by the Roman people; especially when the managers of the
 different companies had taken corn, being the tenths, from the same land, and of the
 same year, to Rome ? What has happened that
 the corn which made part of the tenths was approved, and that that which was bought,
 though out of the same barn, was not approved of? Is there any doubt that all that
 rejection of corn was contrived with the object of raising money?

Be it so. You reject the corn of Halesa, you have corn from another tribe which
 you approve of. Buy that which pleases you; dismiss those whose corn you have
 rejected. But from those whom you reject you exact such sum of money as may be
 equivalent to the quantity of corn which you require of their city. Is there any
 doubt what your object has been? I see from the public documents that the people of
 Halesa gave you fifteen sesterces for every
 medimnus—I will prove from the accounts of the wealthiest of the cultivators, that
 at the same time no one in Sicily sold corn
 at a higher price. What,
 then, is the reason for your rejecting, or rather what madness is it to reject corn
 which comes from that place from which the senate and the people of Rome ordered it to be brought? which comes from
 that very heap, a part of which, under the name of tenths, you had actually approved
 of? and besides, to exact money from the cities for the purchase of cow, when you
 had already received it from the treasury? Did the Terentian law enjoin you to buy
 corn from the Sicilians with the money of the Sicilians, or to buy corn from the
 Sicilians with the money of the Roman people?

But now you see that all that money out of the treasury, which ought to have been
 given to these cities for corn, has been made profit of by that man. For you take
 fifteen sesterces for a medimus of wheat; for that is the value of a medimus at that time. You keep eighteen sesterces ; for that is the price of Sicilian corn, estimated according
 to law. What difference does it make whether you did this, or whether you did not
 reject the corn, but, after the corn was approved and accepted, detained all the
 public money, and paid none to any city whatever? when the valuation of the law is
 such that while it is tolerable to the Sicilians at other times, it ought also to be
 pleasant to them during your praetorship. For a modius is valued by law at three sesterces . But, while you were praetor, it was, as you boast in many
 letters to your friends, valued at two sesterces .
 But suppose it was three sesterces , since you
 exacted that price from the cities for every modius . When, if you had paid the Sicilians as much as the Roman people
 had ordered you to pay, it might have been most pleasing to the cultivators, you not
 only did not choose them to receive what they ought, but you even compelled them to
 pay what was not due from them.

And that these things were done in this manner, you may know, O judges, both from
 the public documents of the cities, and from their public testimonies; in all which
 you will find nothing false, nothing invented as suited to the times. Everything
 which we speak of is entered in the returns and made up in a regular manner, without
 any interpolations or irregularities being foisted into the people's accounts, but
 while they are all made up with deliberation and accuracy. Read the accounts of the
 people of Halesa. To whom does he say that money was paid? Speak, speak, I say, a
 little louder. “To Volcatius, to Timarchides, to Maevius.” What is all this, O Verres? have you not
 left yourself even this argument in your defence, that they are the managers of the
 companies who have been concerned in those matters? that they are the managers who
 have rejected the corn? that they are the managers who have settled the affair with
 the cities for money? and that it is they also who have taken money from you in the
 name of those cities? and, moreover, that they have bought corn for themselves; and
 that all these things do not at all concern you? It would, in truth, be an
 insufficient and a wretched defence for a praetor to say this, “I never touched the
 corn, I never saw it, I gave the managers of the companies the power of approving of
 rejecting it; the managers extorted money from the cities but I paid to the managers
 the money which I ought to have paid to the people.”

This is, as I have said, an insufficient, or rather, a profligate defence against
 an accusation. But still, even this one, if you were to wish to use it, you cannot
 use. Volcatius, the delight of yourself and your friends, forbids you to make
 mention of the manager; and Timarchides, the prop of your household, stops the mouth
 of your defence; who, as well as Volcatius, had money paid to him from the cities.
 But now your clerk, with that golden ring of his, which he procured out of these
 matters, will not allow you to avail yourself of that argument. What then remains
 for you, except to confess that you sent to Rome corn which had been bought with the money of the Sicilians? that
 you appropriated the public money to your own purposes? O you habit of sinning, what
 delight you afford to the wicked and the audacious, when chastisement is afar off,
 and when impunity attends you!

This is not the first time that that man has been guilty of that sort of
 peculation, but now for the first time is he convicted. We have seen money paid to
 him from the treasury, while he was quaestor, for the expense of a consular army; we
 saw, a few months afterwards, both army and consul stripped of everything All that
 money lay hid in that obscurity and darkness which at that time had seized upon the
 whole republic. After that, he discharged the duties of the quaestorship to which he
 succeeded under Dolabella. He embezzled a vast sum of money; but he mixed up his
 accounts of that money with the confusion consequent on the conviction of Dolabella.
 Immense sums of money were entrusted to him when praetor. You will not find him a
 man to lick up these most infamous profits nervously and gently; he did not hesitate
 to swallow up at a gulp the whole of the public money. That wicked covetousness,
 when it is implanted in a man's nature, creeps on in such a way, when the habit of
 sinning has emancipated itself from restraint, that it is not able to put any limits
 to its audacity.

At length it is detected, and it is detected in affairs of great importance, and
 of undoubted certainty. And it seems to me that, by the interposition of the gods,
 this man too has become involved in such dishonesty, as not only to suffer
 punishment for the crimes which he has lately committed, but also to be overwhelmed
 with the vengeance due to the sins which he committed against Carbo and against
 Dolabella. There is in
 truth also another new feature in this crime, O judges, which will remove all doubts
 as to his criminality on the former charge respecting the tenths. For, to say
 nothing of this fact, that very many of the cultivators of the soil had not corn
 enough for the second tenths, and for those eight thousand modii which they were bound to sell to the Roman people, but that they
 bought them of your agent, that is, of Apronius; which is a clear proof that you had
 left the cultivators actually nothing: to pass over this, which teas been clearly
 set forth in many men's evidence, can anything be more certain than this,—that all
 the corn of Sicily , and all the crops of
 the land liable to the payment of tenths, were for three years in your power and in
 your barns?

for when you were demanding of the cities money for corn, whence was the corn to
 be procured for you to send to Rome , if
 you had it not all collected and locked up? Therefore, in the affair of that corn,
 the first profit of all was that of the corn itself, which had been taken by
 violence from the cultivators; the next profit was because that very corn which had
 been procured by you during your three years, you sold not once, but twice; not for
 one payment, but for two, though it was one and the same lot of corn; once to the
 cities, for fifteen sesterces a medimnus , a second time to the Roman people, from whom you
 got eighteen sesterces a medimus for the very same corn.

But perhaps you approved besides of the corn of the Centuripans, of the
 Agrigentines, and of some others, and paid money to these nations. There may be some
 cities in that number whose corn you were unwilling to object to. What then? Was all
 the money that was owed for corn paid to these cities? Find me one—not one people,
 but one cultivator. See, seek, look around, if perchance there is any single man in
 that province in which you were governor for three years, who does not wish you to
 be ruined. Produce me one, I say, out of all those cultivators who contributed money
 even to raise a statue to you, who will say that everything that was due for corn
 was paid. I pledge myself, O judges, that none will say so.

Out of all the money which it was your duty to pay to the cultivators, you were in
 the habit of making deductions on certain pretexts; first of all for the
 examination, and for the difference in the exchanges; secondly, for some stealing
 money or other. All these names, O judges, do not belong to any legal demand, but to
 the most infamous robberies. For what difference of exchange can there be when all
 use one kind of money? And what is sealing money How has this name got introduced
 into the accounts of a magistrate? how came it to be connected with the public
 money? For the third description of deduction was such as if it were not only
 lawful, but even proper; and not only proper, but absolutely necessary. Two
 fiftieths were deducted from the entire sum in the name of the clerk. Who gave you
 leave to do this?—what law? what authority of the senate? Moreover where was the
 justice of your clerk taking such a sum, whether it was taken from the property of
 the cultivators, or from the revenues of the Roman people?

For if that sum can he deducted without injury to the cultivators of the soil, let
 the Roman people have it, especially in the existing difficulties of the treasury;
 but if the Roman people intended it to be paid to the cultivators, and if it is just
 that it should be, then shall your officer, hired at small wages paid by the people,
 plunder the property of the cultivators? And shall Hortensius excite against me in
 this cause the whole body of clerks? and shall he say that their interests are
 undermined by me, and their lights opposed? as if this were allowed to the clerks by
 any precedent or by any right. Why should I go back to old times? or why should I
 make mention of those clerks, who, it is evident, were most upright and
 conscientious men? It does not escape my observation, O judges, that old examples
 are now listened to and considered as imaginary fables I will go only to the present
 wretched and profligate time. You, O Hortensius, have lately been quaestor. You can
 say what your clerks did; I say this of mine; when, in that same Sicily , I was paying the cities money for their
 corn, and had with me two most economical men as clerks, Lucius Manilius and Lucius
 Sergius, then I say that not only these two fiftieths were not deducted, but that
 not one single coin was deducted from any one. I would say that all the credit of this was to be
 attributed to me, O judges, if they had ever asked this of me, if they had ever
 thought of it.

For why should a clerk make this deduction, and not rather the muleteer who
 brought the corn down? or the courier, by whose arrival they heard of its coming and
 made the demand? or the crier, who ordered them to appear? or the lictor and the
 slave of Venus, who carried the money? What part of the business or what seasonable
 assistance can a scrivener pretend to, that, I will not say such high wages should
 be given him, but, that a division of such a large sum should take place with him?
 Oh they are a very honourable body of men;—who denies it? or what has that to do
 with this business? But they are an honourable body, because to their integrity are
 entrusted the public accounts and the safety of the magistrates. Ask, therefore, of
 those scriveners who are worthy of their body, masters of households, virtuous and
 honourable men, what is the meaning of those fiftieths? In a moment you will all
 clearly see that the whole affair is unprecedented and scandalous.

Bring me back to those scriveners, if you please; do not get together those men
 who when with a little money scraped together from the presents of spendthrifts and
 the gratuities to actors, they have bought themselves a place in some decury, think that they
 have mounted from the first class of hissed buffoons into the second class of the
 citizens. Those scriveners I will have as arbitrators in this business between you
 and me, men who are indignant that those other fellows should be scriveners at ale
 Although, when we see that there are many unfit men in that order, an order which is
 held out as a reward for industry and good conduct, are we to wonder that there are
 some base men in that order also, a place in which any one can purchase for money?
 When you confess that
 your clerk, with your leave, took thirteen hundred thousand sesterces of the public money, do you think that you have any defence
 left? that any one can endure this? Do you think that even any one of those who are
 at this moment your own advocates can listen to this with equanimity? Do you think
 that, in the same city in which an action was brought against Caius Cato, a
 most illustrious man, a man of consular rank, to recover a sum of eighteen thousand
 sesterces ; in that same city it could be
 permitted to your clerk to carry off at one swoop thirteen hundred thousand sesterces ?

Here is where that golden ring came from, with which you presented him in the
 public assembly; a gift which was an act of such extraordinary impudence that it
 seemed novel to all the Sicilians, and to me incredible. For our generals, after a
 defeat of the enemy, after some splendid success, have often presented their
 secretaries with golden rings in a public assembly; but you, for what exploit, for
 the defeat of what enemy did you dare to summon an assembly for the purpose of
 making this present? Nor did you only present your clerk with a ring, but you also
 presented a man of great bravery, a man very unlike yourself, Quintus Rubrius, a man
 of eminent virtue, and dignity, and riches, with a crown, with horse trappings, and
 a chain; and also Marcus Cossutius, a most conscientious and honourable man, and
 Marcus Castritius, a man of the greatest wealth, and ability, and influence.

What was the meaning of these presents made to these three Roman citizens? Besides
 that, you gave presents also to some of the most powerful and noble of the
 Sicilians, who have not, as you hoped, been the more slow to come forward, but have
 only come with more dignity to give their evidence in this trial of yours. Where did
 all these presents come from? from the spoils of what enemy? gained in what victory?
 Of what booty or trophies do they make a part? Is it because while you were praetor,
 a most beautiful fleet, the bulwark of Sicily , the defence of the province, was burnt by the hands of pirates arriving in a few
 light galleys? or because the territory of Syracuse was laid waste by the conflagrations of the banditti while
 you were praetor? or because the forum of the Syracuse overflowed with the blood of the captains? or because a
 piratical galley sailed about in the harbour of Syracuse ? I can find no reason which I can imagine for your having
 fallen into such madness, unless indeed your object was to prevent men from ever
 forgetting the disasters of your administration.

A clerk was presented with a golden ring, and an assembly was convoked to witness
 that presentation. What must have been your face when you saw in the assembly those
 men out of whose property that golden ring was provided for the present; who
 themselves had laid aside their golden rings, and had taken them off from their
 children, in order that your clerk might have the means to support your liberality
 and kindness? Moreover, what was the preface to this present? Was it the old one
 used by the generals?—“Since in battle, in war, in military affairs, you....” There
 never was even any mention of such matters while you were praetor. Was it this,
 “Since you have never failed me in any act of covetousness, or in any baseness, and
 since you have been concerned with me in all my wicked actions, both during my
 lieutenancy, and my praetorship, and here in Sicily ; on account of all these things, since I have already made you
 rich, I now present you with this golden ring?” This would have been the truth. For
 that golden ring given by you does not prove he was a brave man, but only a rich
 one. As we should judge that same ring, if given by some one else, to have evidence
 of virtue when given by you, we consider it only an accompaniment to money.

I have spoken, O judges, of the corn collected as tenths; I have spoken of that
 which was purchased; the last, the only remaining topic, is the valuation of the
 corn, which ought to have weight with every one, both from the vastness of the sum
 involved, and from the description of the injustice done; and more than either,
 because against this charge he is provided, not with some ingenious defence, but
 with a most scandalous confession of it. For though it was lawful for him, both by a
 decree of the senate, and also by the laws, to take corn and lay it up in the
 granaries, and though the senate had valued that corn at four sesterces for a modius of wheat, two
 for one of barley, Verres, having first added to the quantity of wheat, valued each
 modius of wheat with the cultivators at three
 denarii . My
 charge is not this, O Hortensius; do not you think about this; I know that many
 virtuous, and brave, and incorruptible men, have often valued, both with the
 cultivators of the soil and with cities, the corn which ought to have been taken and
 laid up in the granary, and have taken money instead of corn; I know what is
 accustomed to be done; I know what is lawful to be done; nothing which has been
 previously the custom of virtuous men is found fault with ill the conduct of Verres.

This is what I find fault with, that, when a modius of wheat in Sicily cost
 two sesterces , as his letter which was sent to you
 declares, or at most, three, as has also already been made clear from all the
 evidence and all the accounts of the cultivators, he exacted from the cultivators
 three denarii for every modius of wheat. This is the charge; I wish you to understand, that my accusation
 turns not on the fact of his having valued the corn, nor even of his having valued
 it at three denarii but on that of his having
 increased the quantity of corn, and consequently the amount of the valuation. In
 truth this valuation originated, O judges, at first not in the convenience of the
 praetors or consuls, but in the advantage to the cultivators and the cities. For
 originally, no one was so impudent as to demand money when it was corn that was due;
 certainly this proceeded in the first instance from the cultivator or from the city
 which was required to furnish corn; when they had either sold the corn, or wished to
 keep it, or were not willing to carry it to that place where it was required to be
 delivered, they begged as a kindness and a favour, that they might be allowed,
 instead of the corn, to give the value of the corn. From such a commencement as
 this, and from the liberality and accommodating spirit of the magistrates the custom
 of valuations was introduced.

More covetous, magistrates succeeded; who, in their avarice, devised not only a
 plan for their own gain, but also a way of escape, and a plea for their defence.
 They adopted a custom of always requiring corn to be delivered at the most remote
 and inconvenient places, in order that, through the difficulty of carriage, the
 cultivators might be more easily brought to the valuation which they wished. In a
 case of this kind it is easier to form one's opinion, than to make out a case for
 blame; because we can think the man who does this avaricious, but we cannot easily
 make out a charge against him; because it appears that we must grant this to our
 magistrates, that they may have power to receive the corn in any place they choose;
 therefore this is what many perhaps have done, not, however, so many out that those
 whom we recollect, or whom we have heard of as the most upright magistrates, have
 declined to do it.

I ask of you now, O Hortensius, with which of these classes you are going to
 compare the conduct of Verres? With those, I suppose, who, influenced by their own
 kindness, have granted, as a favour and as a convenience to the cities, permission
 to give money instead of corn. And so I suppose the cultivators begged of him, that,
 as they could not sell a modius of wheat for three
 sesterces , they may be allowed to pay three
 denarii instead of each modius . Or, since you do not dare to say this, will you take refuge in
 that assertion, that, being influenced by the difficulty of carriage, they preferred
 to give three denarii ? Of what carriage? Wishing
 not to have to carry it from what place to what place? from Philomelium to Ephesus ? I see what is the difference between the price of corn at
 different places; I see too how many days' journey it is; I see that it is for the
 advantage of the Philomelians rather to pay in Phrygia the price which corn bears in Ephesus , than to carry it to Ephesus , or to send both money and agents to Ephesus to buy corn.

But what can there be like that in Sicily ? Enna is a completely
 inland town. Compel (that is the utmost stretch of your authority) the people of
 Enna to deliver their corn at the
 waterside; they will take it to Phintia, or to Halesa, or to Catina , places all very distant from one another,
 the same day that you issue the order; though there is not even need of any carriage
 at all; for all this profit of the valuation, O judges, arises from the variety in
 the price of corn. For a magistrate in a province can manage this,—namely, to
 receive it where it is dearest. And therefore that is the way valuations are managed
 in Asia and in Spain , and in those provinces in which corn is not everywhere the
 same price. But in Sicily what difference
 did it make to any one in what place he delivered it? for he had not to carry it;
 and wherever he was ordered to carry it, there he might buy the same quantity of
 corn which he sold at home.

Wherefore, if, O Hortensius, you wish to show that anything, in the matter of the
 valuation, was done by him like what has been done by others, you must show that at
 any place in Sicily , while Verres was
 praetor, a modius of wheat ever cost three denarii . See what a defence I have opened to you; how unjust to our allies,
 how far removed from the good of the republic, how utterly foreign to the intention
 and meaning of the law. Do you, when I am prepared to deliver you corn on my own
 farm, in my own city,—in the very place, in short, in which you are, in which you
 live, in which you manage all your business and conduct the affairs of the
 province,—do you, I say, select for me some remote and desert corner of the island?
 Do you bid me deliver it there, whither it is very inconvenient to carry it? where I
 cannot purchase it?

It is a shameful action, O judges, intolerable, permitted to no one by law, but
 perhaps not yet punished in any instance. Still this very thing, which I say ought
 not to be endured, I grant to you, O Verres; I make you a present of it. If in any
 place of that province corn was at the price at which he valued it, then I think
 that this charge ought not to have any weight against him. But when it was fetching
 two sesterces , or even three at the outside, in any
 district of the province which you choose to name, you exacted twelve. If there
 cannot be any dispute between you and me either about the price of corn, or about
 your valuation, why are you sitting there? What are you waiting for? What will you
 say in your defence? Does money appear to have been appropriated by you contrary to
 the laws, contrary to the interests of the republic, to the great injury of our
 allies? Or will you say in your defence, that all this has been done lawfully,
 regularly, in a manner advantageous to the republic, without injury to any one?

When the senate had given you money out of the treasury, and had paid you money
 which you were to pay the cultivators, a denarius 
 for every modius , what was it your duty to do? If
 you had wished to do what Lucius Piso, surnamed Thrifty, who first made the law
 about extortion, would have done, when you had bought the corn at the regular price,
 you would have returned whatever money there was over. If you wished to act as men
 desirous of gaining popularity, or as kind-hearted men would, as the senate had
 valued the corn at more than the regular price, you would have paid for it according
 to the valuation of the senate, and not according to the market price. Or if, as
 many do, a conduct which produces some profit indeed, but still an honest and
 allowable one, you would not have bought corn, since it was cheaper than they
 expected, but you would have retained the money which the senate had granted you for
 furnishing the granary. 
 But what is it that you have done? What presence has it, I will not say of justice,
 but even of any ordinary roguery or impudence? For, indeed, there is not usually
 anything which men, however dishonest, dare to do openly in their magistracy, for
 which they cannot give, if not a good excuse, still some excuse or other.

But what sort of conduct is this? The praetor came. Says he, I must buy some corn
 of you. Very well. At a denarius for a modius I am much obliged to you; you are very liberal, for
 I cannot get three sesterces for it. But I don't
 want the corn, I will take the money. I had hoped, says the cultivator, that I
 should have touched the denarii ; but if you must
 have money, consider what is the price of corn now. I see it costs two sesterces . What money, then, can be required of me for
 you, when the senate has allowed you four sesterces ? Listen, now, to what he demands And I entreat you, O judges,
 remark at the same time the equity of the praetor:

“The four sesterces which the senate has voted
 me, and has paid me out of the treasury, those I shall keep, and shall transfer out
 of the public chest into my strong box.” What comes next? What? “For each modius which I require of you, do you give me eight
 sesterces .” On what account? “What do you ask me
 on what account for? It is not so much on what account that we need think, as of how
 advantageous it will be,—how great a booty I shall get.” Speak, speak, says the
 cultivator, a little plainer. The senate desires that you should pay me money,—that
 I should deliver corn to you. Will you retain that money which the senate intended
 should be paid to me, and take two sesterces 
 a- modius from me, to whom you ought to pay a
 denarius for each modius ? And then will you call this plunder and robbery granary-money?

This one injury,—this single distress, was wanting to the cultivators under your
 praetorship, to complete the ruin of the remainder of their fortunes. For what
 remaining injury could be done to the man who, owing to this injury, was forced not
 only to dose all his corn, but even to sell all his tools and stock? He had no way
 to turn. From what produce could he find the money to pay you? Under the name of
 tenths, as much had been taken from him as the caprice of Apronius chose; for the
 second tenths and for the corn that had been purchased either nothing had been paid,
 or only so much as the clerk had left behind, or perhaps it was even taken for
 nothing, as you have had proved to you. Is money also to be extorted from the cultivators? How? By what
 right? by what precedent? For when the crops of the cultivator were carried off and
 plundered with every kind of injustice, the cultivator appeared to lose what he had
 himself raised with his plough, for which he had toiled, what his land and his
 cornfields had produced.

But amid this terrible ill-treatment, there was still this wretched
 consolation,—that he seemed only to be losing what, under another praetor, he could
 get again out of the same land. But now it is necessary for the cultivator—to give
 money, which he does not get out of the land—to sell his oxen, and his plough
 itself, and all his tools For you are not to think this. “The man has also
 possessions in ready money; he has also possessions inland, near the city.” For when
 a burden is imposed on a cultivator of the soil, it is not the mean and ability of
 the man that is to be considered, whether he has any property besides; but the
 quality and description of his land, what that can endure, what that can suffer,
 what that can and ought to produce. Although those men have been drained and ruined
 by Verres in every possible manner, still you ought to decide what contribution you
 consider the cultivator ought to render to the republic on account of his land, and
 what charges he can support. You impose the payment of tenths on them. They endure
 that. A second tenth. You think they must be subservient to your necessities,—that
 they must, besides that, supply you with more if you choose to purchase it They will
 so supply you if you choose.

How severe all this is, and how little, after all these deductions are made, can
 be left of clear profit for the owners, I think you, from your own farming
 experience, can guess. Add, now, to all this, the edicts, the regulations, the
 injuries of Verres,—add the reign and the rapine of Apronius, and the slaves of
 Apronius, in the land subject to the payment of tenths. Although I pass over all
 this; I am speaking of the granary. Is it your intention that the Sicilians should
 give corn to our magistrates for their granaries for nothing? What can be more
 scandalous, what can be more iniquitous than that? And yet, know you that this would
 have seemed to the cultivators a thing to be wished for, to be begged for, while
 that man was praetor. 
 Sositenus is a citizen of Entella; a man of the greatest prudence, and of the
 noblest birth in his city. You have heard what he said when he was sent by the
 public authority to this trial as a deputy, together with Artemon and Meniscus, men
 of the highest character. He, when in the senate at Entella he was discussing with
 me the injustice of Verres, said this: that, if the question of the granaries and of
 the valuation were conceded, the Sicilians were willing to promise the senate corn
 for the granary without payment, so that we need not for the future vote such large
 sums to our magistrates.

I am sure that you clearly perceive how advantageous this would be for the
 Sicilians not because of the justice of such a condition, but in the way of choosing
 the least of two evils; for the man who had given Verres a thousand modii for the granary as his share of the contribution
 required, would have given two, or, at most, three thousand sesterces , but the same man has now been compelled for the same
 quantity of corn to give eight thousand sesterces .
 A cultivator could not stand this for three years, at least not out of his own
 produce. He must inevitably have sold his stock. But if the land can endure this
 contribution and this tribute,—that is to say, if Sicily can bear and support it, let it pay it to the Roman people
 rather than to our magistrates. It is a great sum, a great and splendid revenue. If
 you can obtain it without damage to the province, without injury to our allies, I do
 not object at all. Let as much be given to the magistrates for their granary as has
 always been given. What Verres demands besides, that, if they cannot provide it, let
 them refuse. If they can provide it, let it be the revenue of the Roman people
 rather than the plunder of the praetor.

In the next place, why is that valuation established for only one description of
 corn? If it is just and endurable, then Sicily owes the Roman people tenths; let it give three denarii for each single modius of wheat; let it keep the corn itself. Money has been paid to
 you, O Verres,—one sum with which you were to buy corn for the granary, the other
 with which you were to buy corn from the cities to send to Rome . You keep at your own house the money which
 has been given to you; and besides that, you receive a vast sum in your own name. Do
 the same with respect to that corn which belongs to the Roman people; exact money
 from the cities according to the same valuation, and give back what you have
 received,—then the treasury of the Roman people will be better filled than it ever
 has been.

But Sicily could not endure that in the
 case of the public corn; she did indeed bear it in the case of my own. Just as if
 that valuation was more just when your advantage was concerned, than when that of
 the Roman people was; or, as if the conduct which I speak of and that which you
 adopted, differed only in the description of the injury, and not in the magnitude of
 the sum involved. But that granary they can by no means bear, not even if everything
 else be remitted; not even if they were for ever hereafter delivered from all the
 injuries and distresses which they have suffered while you were praetor, still they
 say that they could not by any possibility support that granary and that valuation.

Sophocles of Agrigentum , a most eloquent
 man, adorned with every sort of learning and with every virtue, is said to have
 spoken lately before Cnaeus Pompeius, when he was consul, on behalf of all
 Sicily , concerning the miseries of the
 cultivators, with great earnestness and great variety of arguments, and to have
 lamented their condition to him. And of all the things which he mentioned, this
 appeared the most scandalous to those who were present, (for the matter was
 discussed in the presence of a numerous assembly,) that, in the very matter in which
 the senate had dealt most honestly and most kindly with the cultivators, in that the
 praetor should plunder, and the cultivators be ruined and that should not only be
 done, but done in such a manner as if it were lawful and permitted.

What says Hortensius to this? that the charge is false? He
 will never say this.—That no great sum was gained by this method? He will not even
 say that.—That no injury was done to Sicilians and the cultivators? How can he say
 that?—What then, will he say,—That it was done by other men. What is the meaning of
 this? Is it a defence against the charge, or company in banishment that he is
 seeking for? Will you in this republic, in this time of unchecked caprice, and (as
 up to this time the course of judicial proceedings has proved) licentiousness on the
 part of men, will you defend that which is found fault with, and affirm that it has
 been done properly; not by reference to right, nor to equity, nor to law, nor
 because it was expedient, nor because it was allowed, but because it was some one
 else who did it?

Other men, too, hare done other things, and plenty of them; why in this charge
 alone do you use this sort of defence? There are some things in you so
 extraordinary, that they cannot be said of, or meet in the character of, any other
 man; there are some things which you have in common with many men. Therefore, to say
 nothing of your acts of peculation, or of your taking money for the appointment of
 judges, and other things of that sort which, perhaps, other men also may have
 committed; will you defend yourself, also, from the charge which I bring against you
 as the most serious one of all—the charge, namely, of having taken money to
 influence your legal decisions, by the same argument, that others have done so too?
 Even if I were to admit the assertion, still I should not admit it as any defence.
 For it would be better that by your condemnation there should be more limited room
 for defending dishonesty left to others, than that, owing to your acquittal, others
 should be thought to have legitimately done what they have done with the greatest
 audacity.

All the provinces are mourning; all the nations that are free are complaining;
 every kingdom is expostulating with us about our covetousness and our injustice;
 there is now no place on this side of the ocean, none so distant, none so out of the
 way, that, in these latter times, the lust and iniquity of our citizens has not
 reached it. The Roman people is now no longer able to bear (I have not to say the
 violence, the arms, and the war, but) the mourning, the tears, and the complaints,
 of all foreign nations. In a case of this sort, in speaking of customs of this sort,
 if he who is brought before the tribunal, when he is detected in evident crimes,
 says that others have also done the same, he will not want examples; but the
 republic will want safety, if, by the precedents of wicked men, wicked men are to be
 delivered from trial and from danger.

Do you approve of the manners of men at present? Do you approve of men's behaving
 themselves in magistracies as they do? Do you approve, finally, of our allies being
 treated as you see that they have been treated all this time? Why am I forced to
 take all this trouble? Why are you all sitting here? Why do you not rise up and
 depart before I have got halfway through my speech? Do you wish to lay open at all
 the audacity and licentiousness of these men? Give up doubting whether it is more
 useful, because there are so many wicked men, to spare one, or by the punishment of
 one wicked man, to check the wickedness of many.

Although, what are those numerous instances of wicked men? For when in a cause of
 such importance, when in the case of a charge of such gravity, the defendant has
 begun to say that anything has frequently been done, those who hear him are
 expecting precedents drawn from ancient tradition; from old records and old
 documents, full of dignity, full of antiquity. For such instances usually have both a great deal of
 authority in proving any point, and are very pleasant to hear cited. Will you speak
 to me of the Africani, and the Catos and the Laelii, and will you say that they have
 done the same thing? Then, even though the act might not please me, still I should
 not be able to fight against the authority of those men. But, since you will not be
 able to produce them, will you bring forward these moderns, Quintus Catulus the
 father, Caius Marcius, Quintus Scaevola, Marcus Scaurus, Quintus Metellus? who have
 all governed provinces, and who have all levied corn on the ground of filling the
 granary. The authority of the men is great, so great as to be able to remove all
 suspicion of wrong-doing.

But you have not, even out of these men who have lived more recently, one
 precedent of that authority. Whither, then, or to what examples will you bring me
 back? Will you lead me away from those men who have spent their lives in the service
 of the republic at a time when manners were very strict, and when the opinion of men
 was considered of great weight, and when the courts of justice were severe, to the
 existing caprice and licentiousness of men of the present age? And do you seek
 precedents for your defence among those men, as a warning to whom the Roman people
 have decided that they are in need of some severe examples? I do not, indeed,
 altogether condemn the manners of the present time, as long as we follow those
 examples which the Roman people approves of; not those which it condemns. I will not
 look around me, I will not go out of doors to seek for any one, while we have as
 judges those chiefs of the city, Publius Servilius and Quintus Catulus, who are men
 of such authority, and distinguished for such exploits, that they may be classed in
 that number of ancient and most illustrious men of whom I have previously spoken.

We are seeking examples, and those not ancient ones. Very lately each of them had
 an army. Ask, O Hortensius, since you are fond of modern instances, what they did.
 Will you not? Quintus Catulus used corn, but he exacted no money. Publius Servilius,
 though he commanded an army for five years, and by that means might have made an
 incalculable sum of money, thought that nothing was lawful for himself which he had
 not seen his father and his grandfather, Quintus Metellus, do. Shall Caius Verres be
 found, who will say that everything is lawful for him which is profitable? Will he
 allege in his defence that he has done in accordance with the example set by others,
 what none, except wicked men, ever have done? Oh, but it has been often done in
 Sicily . What is that condition in which Sicily is? Why is the law of injustice, especially
 defined by a reference to the usages prevalent in that land which, on account of its
 antiquity as our ally, its fidelity, and its nearness to us, ought to enjoy the best
 laws of all?

However, in Sicily itself, (I will not go
 abroad to look for examples,) I will take examples out of the very bench of judges
 before me. Caius Marcellus, I call you as a witness. You governed the province of
 Sicily when you were proconsul. Under
 your command were any sums of money extorted, under the name of money for the
 granary? I do not give you any credit for this. There are other exploits, other
 designs of yours worthy of the highest praise, measures by which you recovered and
 set up again an afflicted and ruined province. For even Lepidus whom you succeeded
 had not committed this fraud about the granary. What precedents then have you in
 Sicily affecting this charge about the
 granary, if you cannot defend yourself from the accusation by quoting any action
 even of Lepidus, much less any action of Marcellus?

Are you going to bring me back to the valuation of the corn, and the exaction of
 money by Marcus Antonius? Just so, says he; to the valuation of Marcus Antonius. For
 this is what he seemed to mean by his signs and nods. Out of all the praetors of the
 Roman people then, and consuls, and generals, have you selected Marcus Antonius, and
 even the most infamous action done by him, for your imitation? And here is it
 difficult for me to say, or for the judges to think, that in that unlimited
 authority Marcus Antonius behaved himself in such a manner, that it is by far more
 injurious to Verres to say that as he, in a most infamous transaction, wished to
 imitate Antonius, than if he were able to allege in his defence, that he had never
 in his whole life done anything like Marcus Antonius? Men in trials are accustomed
 to allege, in making a defence against an accusation, not what any one did, but what
 he did that was good. In the middle of his course of injustice and covetousness
 death overtook Antony, while he was still both doing and planning many things
 contrary to the safety of the allies many things contrary to the advantage of our
 provinces. Will you defend the audacity of Verres by the example of Antonius, as if
 the senate and people of Rome approved of
 all his actions and designs?

But Sacerdos did the same. You name an upright man, and one endued with the
 greatest wisdom; but he can only be thought to have done the same thing, if he did
 it with the same intention. For the mere fact of the valuation has never been found
 fault with by me; but the equity of it depends on the advantage to, and willingness
 of the cultivator. No valuation can be found fault with, which is not only not
 disadvantageous, but which is even pleasing to the cultivator. Sacerdos, when he
 came into the province, commanded corn to be provided for the granary. As before the
 new harvest came in a modius of wheat was five
 denarii , the cities begged of him to have a
 valuation. The valuation wee somewhat lower than the actual market price, for he
 valued it at three denarii . You see that the same
 fact of a valuation, through the dissimilarity of the occasion, was a cause of
 praise in his instance, of accusation in yours. In his instance it was a kindness,
 in yours an injury.

The same year Antonius valued corn at three denarii , after the harvest, in a season of exceeding cheapness, when
 the cultivators would rather give the corn for nothing, and he said that he had
 valued it at the same price as Sacerdos; and he spoke truly, but yet' by the same
 valuation the one had relieved the cultivators, the other had ruined them. And if it
 were not the case that the whole value of corn must be estimated by the season, and
 the market price, not by the abundance, nor by the total amount, these modii and a half of yours, O Hortensius, would never have
 been so agreeable; in distributing which to the Roman people, for every head, small
 as the quantity was, you did an action which was most agreeable to all men; for the
 dearness of corn caused that, which seemed a small thing in reality, to appear at
 that time a great one. If you had given such a largess to the Roman people in a time
 of cheapness, your kindness would have been derided and despised.

Do not, therefore, say that Verres did the same as Sacerdos had done, since he did
 not do it on the same occasion, nor when wheat was at a similar price; say rather,
 since you have a competent authority to quote, that he did for three years what
 Antonius did on his arrival, and with reference to scarcely a month's provisions,
 and defend his innocence by the act and authority of Marcus Antonius. For what will
 you say of Sextus Peducaeus, a most brave and honest man? What cultivator ever
 complained of him? or who did not think that his praetorship was the most impartial
 and the most active one that has ever been known up to this time? He governed the
 province for two years, when one year wee a year of cheapness, the other a year of
 the greatest dearness. Did any cultivator either give him money in the cheap season,
 or in the dear season complain of the valuation of his corn? Oh, but provisions were
 very abundant that dear season.

I believe they were; that is not a new thing nor a blamable one. We very lately
 saw Caius Sentius, a man of old-fashioned and extraordinary incorruptibility, on
 account of the dearness of food which existed in Macedonia , make a great deal of money by furnishing provisions. So
 that I do not grudge you your profits, if any have come to you legally; I complain
 of your injustice; I impeach your dishonesty; I cat your avarice into court, and
 arraign it before this tribunal. But if you wish to excite a
 suspicion that this charge belongs to more men and more provinces than one, I will
 not be afraid of that defence of yours, but I will profess myself the defender of
 all the provinces. In truth I say this, and I say it with a loud voice, “Wherever
 this has been done, it has been done wickedly; whoever has done it is deserving of
 punishment.”

For, in the name of the immortal gods, see, O judges, look forward with your
 mind's eye at what will be the result. Many men have exacted large sums from
 unwilling cities, and from unwilling cultivators, in this way, under pretence of
 filling the granary. (I have no idea of any one person having done so except him,
 but I grant you this, and I admit that many have.) In the case of this man you see
 the matter brought before a court of justice; what can you do? can you, when you are
 judges in a case of embezzlement which is brought before you, overlook the
 misappropriation of so large a sum? or can you, though the law was made for the sake
 of the allies, turn a deaf ear to the complaints of the allies?

However, I give up this point too to you. Disregard what is past, if you please;
 but do not destroy their hopes for the future, and ruin all the provinces; guard
 against this,—against opening, by your authority, a visible and broad way for
 avarice, which up to this time has been in the habit of advancing by secret and
 narrow paths; for if you approve of this, and if you decide that it is lawful for
 money to be taken on that pretext, at all events there is no one except the most
 foolish of men who will not for the future do what as yet no one except the most
 dishonest of men ever has done; they are dishonest men who exact money contrary to
 the laws, they are fools who omit to do what it has been decided that they may do.

In the next place, see, O judges, what a boundless licence for plundering people
 of money you will he giving to men. If the man who exacts three denarii is acquitted, some one else will exact four, five,
 presently ten, or even twenty. What reproof will he meet with? At what degree of
 injury will the severity of the judge first begin to make a stand? How many denarii will it be that will be quite intolerable? and at
 what point will the iniquity and dishonesty of the valuation be first arraigned? For
 it is not the amount, but the description of valuation that will be approved of by
 you. Nor can you decide in this manner, that it is lawful for a valuation to be made
 when the price fixed is three denarii , but not
 lawful when the price fixed is ten; for when a departure is once made from the
 standard of the market price, and when the affair is once so changed that it is not
 the advantage of the cultivators which is the rule, but the will of the praetor,
 then the manner of valuing no longer depends on law and duty, but on the caprice and
 avarice of men. 
 Wherefore, if in giving your decisions you once pass over the boundary of equity and
 law, know that you impose on those who come after no limit to dishonesty and avarice
 in valuing.

See, therefore, how many things are required of you at once. Acquit the man who
 confesses that he has taken immense sums, doing at the same time the greatest injury
 to our allies. That is not enough. There are also many others who have done the same
 thing. Acquit them also, if there are any; so as to release as many rogues as
 possible by one decision. Even that is not enough. Cause that it may be lawful to
 those who come after them to do the same thing. It shall be lawful. Even this is too
 little. Allow it to be lawful for every one to value corn at whatever price he
 pleases. He may so value it. You see now, in truth, O judges, that if this valuation
 be approved of by you, there will be no limit hereafter to any man's avarice, nor
 any punishment for dishonesty.

What, therefore, O Hortensius, are you about? You are the consul elect, you have
 had a province allotted to you. When you speak on the subject of the valuation of
 corn, we shall listen to you as if you were avowing that you will do what you defend
 as having been legitimately done by Verres; and as if you were very eager that that
 should be lawful for you which you say was lawful for him. But if that is to be
 lawful, there is nothing which you can imagine any one likely to do hereafter, in
 consequence of which he can possibly be condemned for extortion. For whatever sum of
 money any one covets, that amount it will be lawful for him to acquire, under the
 plea of the granary, and by means of the highness of the valuation.

But there is a thing, which, even if Hortensius does not say it openly in
 defending Verres, he still does say in such a manner that you may suspect and think
 that this matter concerns the advantage of the senators; that it concerns the
 advantage of those who are judges, and who think that they will some day or other be
 in the provinces themselves as governors or as lieutenants. But you must think that
 we have splendid judges, if you think them likely to show indulgence to the faults
 of others, in order the more easily to be allowed to commit faults themselves. Do we
 then wish the Roman people, do we wish the provinces, and our allies, and foreign
 nations to think that, if senators are the judges, this particular manner of
 extorting immense sums of money with the greatest injustice will never be in any way
 chastised? But if that be the case, what can we say against that praetor who every
 day occupies the senate, who insists upon it that the republic can not prosper, if
 the office of judge is not restored to the equestrian order?

But if he begins to agitate this one point, that there is one description of
 extortion, common to all the senators, and now almost legalized in the case of that
 order, by which immense sums are taken from the allies with the greatest injustice;
 and that this cannot possibly be repressed by tribunals of senators, but that, while
 the equestrian order furnished the senators, it never was committed; who, then, can
 resist him? Who will be so desirous of gratifying you, who will be such a partisan
 of your order, as to be able to oppose the transference of the appointment of judges
 to that body? And I wish
 he were able to make a defence to this charge by any argument, however false, as
 long as it is natural and customary. You could then decide with less danger to
 yourselves, with less danger to all the provinces. Did he deny that he had adopted
 this valuation? You would appear to have believed the man in that statement, not to
 have approved of his action. He cannot possibly deny it. It is proved by all
 Sicily . Out of all that numerous band of
 cultivators, there is not one from whom money has not been exacted on the plea of
 the granary.

I wish he were able to say even this, that that affair does not concern him; that
 the whole business relating to corn was managed by the quaestors. Even that he
 cannot say, because his own letters are read which were sent to the cities, written
 on the subject of the three denarii . What then is
 his defence? “I have done what you accuse me of; I have extorted immense sums on the
 plea of the granary; but it was lawful for me to do so, and it will be lawful for
 you if you take care.” A dangerous thing for the provinces for any classes of injury
 to be established by judicial decision to a dangerous thing for our order, for the
 Roman people to think that these men, who themselves are subject to the laws, cannot
 defend the laws with strictness when they are judges. And while that man was
 praetor, O judges, there was not only no limit to his valuing corn, but there was
 none either to his demands of corn. Nor did he command that only to be supplied that
 was due, but as much as was advantageous for himself. I will put before you the sum
 total of all the corn commanded to be furnished for the granary, as collected out of
 the public documents, and the testimonies of the cities You will find, O judges,
 that man commanded the cities to supply five times as much as it was lawful for him
 to take for the granary. What can be added to this impudence, if he both valued it
 at such a price that men could not endure it, and also commanded so much more to be
 supplied than was permitted to him by the laws to require?

Wherefore, now that you have heard the whole business of
 the corn, O judges, you can easily see that Sicily , that most productive and most desirable province, has been
 lost to the Roman people, unless you recover it by your condemnation of that man.
 For what is Sicily , if you take away the
 cultivation of its land, and if you extinguish the multitude and the very name of
 the cultivators of the soil? For what can there be left of disaster which has not
 come to those unhappy cultivators, with every circumstance of injury and insult?
 They were liable, indeed, to pay tenths, but they have scarcely had a tenth left for
 themselves. When money has been due to them, it has not been paid; though the senate
 intended them to supply corn for the granary according to a very equitable
 valuation, they have been compelled to sell even the tools with which they cultivate
 their lands.

I have already said, O judges, that even if you remove all these injuries, still
 that the occupation of cultivating land is maintained owing to the hopes and a
 certain sort of pleasure which it gives, rather than because of the profit and
 emolument arising from it. In truth every year constant labour and constant expense
 is incurred in the hope of a result which is casual and uncertain. Moreover, the
 crop does not command a high price, except in a disastrous harvest. But if there has
 been a great abundance of crops gathered, then there is cheapness in selling them.
 So that you may see that the corn must be badly sold if it is got in well, or else
 that the crop must be bad if you get a good price for it. And the whole business of
 agriculture is such, that it is regulated not by reason or by industry, but by those
 most uncertain things,—the weather and the winds. When from agriculture one tenth is
 extracted by law and on fair terms,—when a second is levied by a new regulation, on
 account of the necessity of procuring a sufficient supply for ourselves,—when,
 besides, corn is purchased every year by public authority,—and when, after all that,
 more still is ordered by magistrates and lieutenants to be supplied for the
 granary,—what, or how much is there after all this of his own crop which the
 cultivator or owner can have at his own disposal, for his own profit?

And if all this is endured,—if by their care, and expense, and labour, they
 consult your advantage and that of the Roman people rather than themselves and their
 own profit,—still, ought they also to bear these new edicts and commands of the
 praetors, and the imperiousness of Apronius, and the robberies and rapine of the
 slaves of Venus? Ought they also to supply corn which ought to be purchased of them
 without getting any payment for it? Ought they also, though they are willing to
 supply corn for the granary without payment, to be forced to pay large sums too?
 Ought they also to endure all these injures and all these losses accompanied with
 the greatest insult and contumely? Therefore, O judges, those things which they have
 not at all been able to bear, they have not borne. You know that over the whole of
 Sicily the allotments of land are
 deserted and abandoned by their owners. Nor is there anything else to be gained by
 this trial, except that our most ancient and faithful allies, the Sicilians, Roman
 settlers, and the cultivators of the soil, owing to your strictness and your care,
 may return to their farms and to their homes under my guidance and through my
 instrumentality.

I come now to what Verres himself calls his passion what his friends call his
 disease, his madness; what the Sicilians call his rapine; what I am to call it, I
 know not. I will state the whole affair to you, and do you consider it according to
 its own importance and not by the importance of its name. First of all, O judges,
 suffer me to make you acquainted with the description of this conduct of his; and
 then, perhaps, you will not be very much puzzled to know by what name to call it. I
 say that in all Sicily , in all that wealthy
 and ancient province, that in that number of towns and families of such exceeding
 riches, there was no silver vessel, no Corinthian or Delian plate, no jewel or
 pearl, nothing made of gold or ivory, no statue of marble or brass or ivory, no
 picture whether painted or embroidered, that he did not seek out, that he did not
 inspect, that, if he liked it, he did not take away.

I seem to be making a very extensive charge; listen now to the manner in which I
 make it. For I am not embracing everything in one charge for the sake of making an
 impression, or of exaggerating his guilt. When I say that he left nothing whatever
 of the sort in the whole province, know that I am speaking according to the strict
 meaning of the words, and not in the spirit of an accuser. I will speak even more
 plainly; I will say that he has left nothing in any one's house, nothing even in the
 towns, nothing in public places, not even in the temples, nothing in the possession
 of any Sicilian, nothing in the possession of any Roman citizen; that he has left
 nothing, in short, which either came before his eyes or was suggested to his mind,
 whether private property or public, or profane or sacred, in all Sicily .

Where then shall I begin rather than with that city which
 was above all others in your affection, and which was your chosen place of
 enjoyment? or with what class of men rather than with your flatterers? For by that
 means it will be the more easily seen how you behaved among those men who hate you,
 who accuse you, who will not let you rest, when you are proved to have plundered
 among the Mamertines, who are your friends, in the most infamous manner. Caius Heius is a Mamertine—all men
 will easily grant me this who have ever been to Messana ; the most accomplished man in every point of view in all that
 city. His house is the very best in all Messana ,—most thoroughly known, most constantly open, most especially
 hospitable to all our fellow-citizens. That house before the arrival of Verres was
 so splendidly adorned, as to be an ornament even to the city. For Messana itself, which is admirable on account of its
 situation, its fortifications, and its harbour, is very empty and bare of those
 things in which Verres delights.

There was in the house of Heius a private chapel of great sacredness, handed down
 to him from his ancestors, very ancient; in which he had four very beautiful
 statues, made with the greatest skill, and of very high character; calculated not
 only to delight Verres, that clever and accomplished man, but even any one of us
 whom he calls the mob:—one, a statue of Cupid, in marble, a work of Praxiteles; for
 in truth, while I have been inquiring into that man's conduct, I have learnt the
 names of the workmen; it was the same workman, as I imagine, who made that
 celebrated Cupid of the same figure as this which is at Thespiae , on account of which people go to see Thespiae , for there is no other reason for going to
 see it; and therefore that great man Lucius Mummius, when he carried away from that
 town the statues of the Muses which are now before the temple of Good Fortune, and
 the other statues which were not consecrated, did not touch this marble Cupid,
 because it had been consecrated.

But to return to that private chapel; there was this statue, which I am speaking
 of, of Cupid, made of marble. On the other side there was a Hercules, beautifully
 made of brass; that was said to be the work of Myron, as I believe, and it
 undoubtedly was so. Also before those gods there were little altars, which might
 indicate to any one the holiness of the chapel. There were besides two brazen
 statues, of no very great size, but of marvellous beauty, in the dress and robes of
 virgins, which with uplifted hands were supporting some sacred vessels which were
 placed on their heads, after the fashion of the Athenian virgins. They were called
 the Canephorae, but their maker was.... (who? who was he? thank you, you are quite
 right,) they called him Polycletus. Whenever any one of our citizens went to
 Messana , he used to go and see these
 statues. They were open every day for people to go to see them. The house was not
 more an ornament to its master, than it was to the city.

Caius Claudius, whose aedileship we know to have been a
 most splendid affair, used this statue of Cupid, as long as he kept the forum
 decorated in honour of the immortal gods and the Roman people. And as he was
 connected by ties of hospitality with the Heii, and was the patron of the Mamertine
 people,—as he availed himself of their kindness to lend him this, so he was careful
 to restore it There have lately been noble men of the same kind, O judges;—why do I
 say lately, Yes, we have seen some very lately, a very little while ago indeed, who
 have adorned the forum and the public buildings, not with the spoils of the
 provinces, but with ornaments belonging to their friends,—with splendid things lent
 by their own connections, not with the produce of the thefts of guilty men,—and who
 afterwards have restored the statues and decorations, each to its proper owner; men
 who have not taken things away out of the cities of our allies for the sake of a
 four-day festival, under presence of the shows to be exhibited in their aedileship,
 and after that carried them off to their own homes, and their own villas.

All these statues which I have mentioned, O judges, Verres took away from Heius,
 out of his private chapel. Be left, I say, not one of those things, nor anything
 else, except one old wooden figure.—Good Fortune, as I believe; that, forsooth, he
 did not choose to have in his house! Oh! for the good faith of gods and men! What is the meaning of all
 this? What a cause is this? What impudence is this! The statues which I am speaking
 of, before they were taken away by you, no commander ever came to Messana without seeing So many praetors, so many
 consuls as there have been in Sicily , in
 time of peace, and in time of war; so many men of every sort as there have been—I do
 not speak of upright, innocent, conscientious men, but so many covetous, so many
 audacious, so many infamous men as there have been, not one of them all was violent
 enough, or seemed to himself powerful enough or noble enough, to venture to ask for,
 or to take away, or even to touch anything in that chapel. Shall Verres take away
 everything which is most beautiful everywhere? Shall it not be allowed to any one
 besides to have anything? Shall that one house of his contain so many wealthy
 houses? Was it for this reason that none of his predecessors ever touched these
 things, that he might be able to carry them off? Was this the reason why Caius
 Claudius Pulcher restored them, that Caius Verres might be able to steal them? But
 that Cupid had no wish for the house of a pimp and the establishment of a harlot; he
 was quite content to stay in that chapel where he was hereditary; he knew that he
 had been left to Heius by his ancestors, with the rest of the sacred things which he
 inherited; he did not require the heir of a prostitute.

But why am I borne on so impetuously? I shall in a moment be refuted by one word.
 “I bought it,” says he. O ye immortal gods, what a splendid defence! we sent a
 broker into the province with military command and with the forces, to buy up all
 the statues, all the paintings, all the silver plate and gold plate, and ivory, and
 jewels, and to leave nothing to any body. For this defence seems to me to be got
 ready for everything; that he bought them. In the first place, if I should grant to
 you that which you wish, namely, that you bought them, since against all this class
 of accusations you are going to use this defence alone, I ask what sort of tribunals
 you thought that there would be at Rome ,
 if you thought that any one would grant you this, that you in your praetorship and
 in your command bought up so many and such
 valuable things,—everything, in short, which was of any value in the whole province.

Remark the care of our ancestors, who as yet suspected no such conduct as this, but
 yet provided against the things which might happen in affairs of small importance.
 They thought that no one who had gone as governor or as lieutenant into a province
 would be so insane as to buy silver, for that was given him out of the public fends;
 or raiment, for that was afforded him by the laws; they thought he might buy a
 slave, a thing which we all use, and which is not provided by the laws. They made a
 law, therefore, “that no one should buy a slave except in the room of a slave who
 was dead.” If any slave had died at Rome ?
 No, if any one had died in the place where his master was. For they did not mean you
 to furnish your house in the province, but to be of use to the province in its
 necessities.

What was the reason why they so carefully kept us from making purchases in the
 provinces? This was it, O judges, because they thought it a robbery, not a purchase,
 when the seller was not allowed to sell on his own terms. And they were aware that,
 in the provinces, if he who was there with the command and power of a governor wished to purchase what was in any
 one's possession, and was allowed to do so, it would come to pass that he would get
 whatever he chose, whether it was to be sold or not, at whatever price he pleased.
 Some one will say, “Do not deal with Verres in that manner; do not try and examine
 his actions by the standard of old-fashioned conscientiousness; allow him to have
 bought them without being punished for it, provided he bought them in a fair way,
 not through any arbitrary exercise of power, nor from any one against his will, or
 by violence.” I will so deal with him. If Heius had anything for sale, if he sold it
 for the price at which he valued it, I give up inquiring why you bought it.

What then are we to do? Are we to use arguments in a case of this sort? We must
 ask, I suppose, whether Heius was in debt, whether he had an auction,—if he had,
 whether he was in such difficulties about money matters, whether he was oppressed by
 such want, by such necessity, as to strip his private chapel, to sell his paternal
 gods. But I see that the man had no auction; that he never sold anything except the
 produce of his land; that he not only had no debts, but that he had always abundance
 of ready money. Even if all these things were contrary to what I say they were,
 still I say that he would not have sold things which had been so many years in the
 household and chapel of his ancestors. “What will you say if he was persuaded by the
 greatness of the sum given him for them?” It is not probable that a man, rich as he
 was, honourable as he was, should have preferred money to his own religious feelings
 and to the memorials of his ancestors.

“That may be, yet men are sometimes led away from their habits and principles by
 large sums of money.” Let us see, then, how great a sum this was which could turn
 Heius, a man of exceeding riches, by no means covetous, away from decency, from
 affection, and from religion. You ordered him, I suppose, to enter in his account
 books, “All these statues of Praxiteles, of Myron, of Polycletus, were sold to
 Verres for six thousand five hundred sesterces .”
 Read the extracts from his accounts— [The accounts of Heius are read.] I am
 delighted that the illustrious names of these workmen, whom those men extol to the
 skies, have fallen so low in the estimation of Verres—the Cupid of Praxiteles for
 sixteen hundred sesterces . From that forsooth has
 come the proverb “I had rather buy it than ask for it.”

Some one will say, “What! do you value those things at a very high price?” But I am
 not valuing them according to any calculation of my own, or any need which I have
 for them; but I think that the matter ought to be looked at by you in this
 light,—what is the value of these things in the opinion of those men who are judges
 of these things; at what price they are accustomed to be sold; at what price these
 very things could be sold, if they were sold openly and freely; lastly, at what
 price Verres himself values them. For he would never have been so foolish, if he had
 thought that Cupid worth only four hundred denarii ,
 as to allow himself to be made a subject for the common conversation and general
 reproach of men.

Who then of you all is ignorant at how great a price these things are valued? Have
 we not seen at an auction a brazen statue of no great size sold for a hundred and
 twenty thousand sesterces ? What if I were to choose
 to name men who have bought similar things for no less a price, or even for a higher
 one? Can I not do so? In truth, the only limit to the valuation of such things is
 the desire which any one has for them, for it is difficult to set bounds to the
 price unless you first set bounds to the wish. I see then that Heius was neither led
 by his inclination, nor by any temporary difficulties, nor by the greatness of the
 sum given, to sell these statues; and that you, under the presence of purchase which
 you put forward, in reality seized and took away these things by force, through
 fear, by your power and authority, from that man, whom, along with the rest of our
 allies in that country, the Roman people had entrusted not only to your power, but
 also to your upright exercise of it.

What can there be, judges, so desirable for me in making this charge, as that Heius
 should say this same thing? Nothing certainly; but let us not wish for what is
 difficult to be obtained. Heius is a Mamertine. The state of the Mamertines alone,
 by a common resolution, praises that man in the name of the city. To all the rest of
 the Sicilians he is an object of hatred; by the Mamertines alone is he liked. But of
 that deputation which has been sent to utter his praises, Heius is the chief man; in
 truth, he is the chief man of his city, and too much occupied in discharging the
 public duties imposed upon him to speak of his private injuries.

Though I was aware of and had given weight to these considerations, still, O
 judges, I trusted myself to Heius. I produced him at the first pleading; and indeed
 I did it without any danger, for what answer could Heius give even if he turned out
 a dishonest man, and unlike himself? Could he say that these statues were at his
 house, and not with Verres? How could he say anything of that sort? If he were the
 basest of men, and were inclined to lie most shamelessly, he would say this; that he
 had had them for sale, and that he had sold them at the price he wanted for them.
 The man the most noble in all his city, who was especially anxious that you should
 have a high opinion of his conscientiousness and of his worth, says first, that he
 spoke in Verres's praise by the public authority of his city, because that
 commission had been given to him; secondly; that he had not had these things for
 sale, and that, if he had been allowed to do what he wished, he could never have
 been induced by any terms to sell those things which were in his private chapel,
 having been left to him and handed down to him from his ancestors.

Why are you sitting there, O Verres? What are you waiting for? Why do you say that
 you are hemmed in and overwhelmed by the cities of Centuripa, of Catina , of Halesa, of Tyndaris , of Enna , of Agyrium , and by all
 the other cities of Sicily ? Your second
 country, as you used to call it, Messana herself attacks you; your own Messana I say; the assistant in your crimes, the witness of your
 lusts, the receiver of your booty and your thefts. For the most honourable man of
 that city is present, a deputy sent from his home on account of this very trial, the
 chief actor in the panegyric on you; who praises you by the public order of his
 city, for so he has been charged and commanded to do. Although you recollect, O
 judges, what he answered when he was asked about the ship; that it had been built by
 public labour, at the public expense, and that a Mamertine senator had been
 appointed by the public authority to superintend its building. Heius in his private
 capacity flees to you for aid, O judges; he avails himself of this law, the common
 fortress of our allies, by which this tribunal is established. Although there is a
 law for recovering money which has been unjustly extorted, he says that he does not
 seem to recover any money; which though it has been taken from him, he does not so
 much care about: but he says he does demand back from you the sacred images
 belonging to his ancestors, he does demand back from you his hereditary household
 god?

Have you any shame, O Verres? have you any religion? have you any fear, You have
 lived in Heius's house at Messana ; you saw
 him almost daily performing sacred rites in his private chapel before those gods. He
 is not influenced by money; he does not even ask to have those things restored which
 were merely ornaments. Keep the Canephorae; restore the images of the gods. And
 because he said this, because after a given time he, an ally and friend of the Roman
 people, addressed his complaints to you in a moderate tone, because he was very
 attentive to religious obligation not only while demanding back his paternal gods,
 but also in giving his evidence on oath; know that one of the deputies has been sent
 back to Messana , that very man who
 superintended the building of that ship at the public expense, to demand from the
 senate that Heius should be condemned to an ignominious punishment.

O most insane of men, what did you think? that you should obtain what you
 requested? Did you not know how greatly he was esteemed by his fellow-citizens; how
 great his influence was considered? But suppose you had obtained your request;
 suppose that the Mamertines had passed any severe vote against Heius, what do you
 think would have been the authority of their panegyric, if they had decreed
 punishment to the man who it was notorious had given true evidence? Although, what
 sort of praise is that, when he who utters it, being questioned, is compelled to
 give answers injurious to him whom he is praising? What! are not those who are
 praising you, my witnesses? Heius is an encomiast of yours; he has done you the most
 serious injury. I will bring forward the rest; they will gladly be silent about all
 that they are allowed to suppress; they will say what they cannot help saying,
 unwillingly. Can they deny that a transport of the largest size was built for that
 man at Messana ? Let them deny it if they
 can. Can they deny that a Mamertine senator was appointed by the public authority to
 superintend the building of that ship? I wish they would deny it. There are other
 points also which I prefer reserving unmentioned at present, in order to give as
 little time as possible to them for planning and arranging their perjury.

Let this praise, then, be placed to your account; let these men come to your relief
 with their authority, who neither ought to help you if they were able, nor could do
 so if they wished; on whom in their private capacity you have inflicted many
 injuries, and put many affronts, while in their city you have dishonoured many
 families for ever by your adulteries and crimes “But you have been of public service
 to their city.” Not without great injury to the republic and to the province of
 Sicily . They were bound to supply and
 they used to supply sixty thousand modii of wheat to
 the Roman people for payment; that was remitted by you of your own sole authority.
 The republic was injured because by your means its right of dominion over one city
 was disparaged; the Sicilians were injured, because this quantity was not deducted
 from the total amount of the corn to be provided by the island, but was only
 transferred to the cities of Centuripa and Halesa, whose inhabitants were exempt
 from that tax; and on them a greater burden was imposed than they were able to bear.

It was your duty to require them to furnish a ship, in compliance with the treaty.
 You remitted it for three years. During all those years you never demanded one
 soldier. You acted as pirates are accustomed to act, who, though they are the common
 enemies of all men, still select some friends, whom they not only spare, but even
 enrich with their booty; and especially such as have a town in a convenient
 situation, where they often, and sometimes even necessarily, put in with their
 vessels. The town of
 Phaselis, which Publius Servilius took, had not been in former times a city of
 Cilicians and pirates. The Lycians, a Greek tribe, inhabited it; but because it was
 in such a situation as it was, and because it projected into the sea, so that
 pirates from Cilicia often necessarily
 touched at it when departing on an expedition, and were also often borne thither on
 their retreats, the pirates connected that city with themselves; at first by
 commercial intercourse, and afterwards by a regular alliance.

The city of the Mamertines was not formerly of bad character; it was even a city
 hostile to dishonest men, and detained the luggage of Caius Cato, the one who was
 consul But then what sort of a man was he? a most eminent and most influential man;
 who however, though he had been consul, was convicted. So Caius Cato, the grandson
 of two most illustrious men, Lucius Paullus and Marcus Cato, and the son of the
 sister of Publius Africanus; who, even when convicted, at a time when severe
 judgments were in the habit of being passed, found the damages to which he was
 liable only estimated at eighteen thousand sesterces ; with this man, I say, the Mamertines were angry, who have
 often expended a greater sum than the damages in the action against Cato were laid
 at, in one banquet for Timarchides.

But this city was the Phaselis for that robber and pirate of Sicily . Hither everything was brought from all
 quarters; with them it was left; whatever required to be concealed, they kept
 separate and stored away. By their agency he contrived everything which he wished
 put on board ship privately, and exported secretly; and in their harbour he
 contrived to have a vessel of the largest size built for him to send to Italy loaded with plunder. In return for these
 services, he gave them immunity from all expense, all labour, all military service,
 in short, from everything. For three years they were the only people, not only in
 Sicily , but, according to my opinion, in
 the whole world at such a time, who enjoyed excuse, relief, freedom, and immunity
 from every sort of expense, and trouble, and office.

Hence arose that Verrean festival; hence it was that he ventured to order Sextus
 Cominius to be dragged before him at a banquet, at whom he attempted to throw a
 goblet, whom he ordered to be seized by the throat, and to be hurried from the
 banquet and thrown into a dark prison; hence came that cross, on which, in the sight
 of many men, he suspended a Roman citizen; that cross which he never ventured to
 erect anywhere except among that people, whom he had made sharers in all his crimes
 and robberies. Do you, O
 Mamertines, dare to come to praise any one? By what authority? by that which you
 ought to have with the Senatorial order? by that which you ought to have with the
 Roman people?

Is there any city, not only in our provinces, but in the most distant nations,
 either so powerful, or so free, or so savage and uncivilized? is there any king, who
 would not invite a Senator of the Roman people to his house and to his home? An
 honour which is paid not only to the man, but in the first place to the Roman
 people, by whose indulgence we have risen to this order, and secondly to the
 authority of this order; and unless that is respected among our allies, where will
 be the name and dignity of the empire among foreign nations? The Mamertines did not
 give me any public invitation—when I say me, that is a trifle, but when they did not
 invite a Senator of the Roman people, they withheld an honour due not to the man but
 to his order. For to Tullius himself, the most splendid and magnificent house of
 Cnaeus Pompeius Basilicus was opened; with whom he would have lodged even if he had
 been invited by you. There was also the most honourable house of the Percennii, who
 are now also called Pompeius; where Lucius my brother lodged and was received by
 them with the greatest eagerness. A Senator of the Roman people, as far as depended
 on you as a body, lay in your town, and passed the night in the public streets. No
 other city ever did such a thing. “Yes,” say you, “for you were instituting a
 prosecution against our friend.” Will you put your own interpretation on what
 private business I have of my own, by diminishing the honour due to the Senate?

But I will make my complaint of this conduct, if ever the time comes that there is
 any discussion concerning you among that body, which, up to this time, has been
 affronted by no one but you. With what face have you presented yourself before the
 eyes of the Roman people? when you have not yet pulled down that cross, which is
 even now stained with the blood of a Roman citizen, which is fixed up in your city
 by the harbour, and have not thrown it into the sea and purified all that place,
 before you came to Rome , and before this
 tribunal. On the territory of the Mamertines, connected with us by treaty, at peace
 with us, is that monument of your cruelty raised. Is not your city the only one
 where, when any one arrives at it from Italy , he sees the cross of a Roman citizen before he sees any friend
 of the Roman people? which you are in the habit of displaying to the people of
 Rhegium , whose city you envy, and to your
 inhabitants, Roman citizens as they are, to make them think less of themselves, and
 be less inclined to despise you, when they see the privileges of our citizenship
 extinguished by such a punishment.

But you say you bought these things? What? did you forget to purchase of the same
 Heius that Attalic tapestry, celebrated over the whole of Sicily ? You might have bought them in the same way
 as you did the statues. For what did you do? Did you wish to spare the account
 books? This escaped the notice of that stupid man; he thought that what he stole
 from the wardrobe would be less notorious than what he had stolen from the private
 chapel. But how did he get it? I cannot relate it more plainly than Heius himself
 related it before you. When I asked, whether any other part of his property had come
 to Verres, he answered that he had sent him orders to send the tapestry to
 Agrigentum to him. I asked whether he had
 sent it. He replied as he must, that is, that he had been obedient to the praetor;
 that he had sent it.—I asked whether it had arrived at Agrigentum ; he said it had arrived.—I asked in what condition it had
 returned; he said it had not returned yet.—There was a laugh and a murmur from all
 the people.

Did it never occur to you in this instance to order him to make an entry in his
 books, that he had sold you this tapestry too, for six thousand five hundred
 sesterces ? Did you fear that your debts would
 increase, if these things were to cost you six thousand five hundred sesterces , which you could easily sell for two hundred
 thousand? It was worth that, believe me. You would have been able to defend yourself
 if you had given that sum for it. No one would then have asked how much it was
 worth. If you could only prove that you had bought it, you could easily make your
 cause and your conduct appear reasonable to any one. But as it is, you have no way
 of getting out of your difficulty about the tapestry. What shall I say next?

Did you take away by force some splendid harness, which is said to have belonged to
 King Hiero, from Philarchus of Centuripa, a wealthy and high-born man, or did you
 buy it of him? When I was in Sicily , this
 is what I heard from the Centuripans and from everybody else, for the case was very
 notorious; people said that you had taken away this harness from Philarchus of
 Centuripa, and other very beautiful harness from Aristus of Panormus , and a third set from Gratippus of
 Tyndarus. Indeed, if Philarchus had sold it to you, you would not, after the
 prosecution was instituted against you, have promised to restore it. But because you
 saw that many people knew of it, you thought that if you restored it to him, you
 would only have so much the less, but the original transaction would be proved
 against you nevertheless; and so you did not restore it. Philarchus said in his
 evidence, that when he became acquainted with this disease of yours, as your friends
 call it, he wished to conceal from you the knowledge of the existence of this
 harness; that when he was summoned by you, he said that he had not got any; and
 indeed, that he had removed them to another person's house, that they might not be
 found; but that your instinct was so great, that you saw them by the assistance of
 the very man in whose custody they were deposited; that then he could not deny that
 you had found him out, and so that the harness was taken from him against his will,
 and without any payment.

Now, O judges, it is worth your while to know how he was accustomed to find and
 trace out all these things. There are two brothers, citizens of Cibyra , Tlepolemus and Hiero, one of whom, I
 believe, was accustomed to model in wax, the other was a painter. I fancy these men,
 as they had become suspected by their fellow-citizens of having plundered the temple
 of Apollo at Cibyra , fearing a trial and
 the punishment of the law, had fled from their homes. As they had known that Verres
 was a great connoisseur of such works as theirs, at the time that he, as you learnt
 from the witnesses, came to Cibyra with
 fictitious bills of exchange, they, when flying from their homes as exiles, came to
 him when he was in Asia . He has kept them
 with him ever since that time; and in the robberies he committed, and in the booty
 he acquired during his lieutenancy, he greatly availed himself of their assistance
 and their advice.

These are the men who were meant when Quintus Tadius made an entry in his books
 that he had given things by Verres's order to some Greek painters. They were already
 well known to, and had been thoroughly tried by him, when he took them with him into
 Sicily . And when they arrived there, they
 scented cut and tracked everything in so marvellous a manner, (you might have
 thought they were bloodhounds,) that, wherever anything was they found it out by
 some means or other. Some things they found out by threatening, some by promising;
 this by means of slaves, that through freemen; one thing by a friend, another by an
 enemy. Whatever pleased them was sure to be lost. They whose plate was demanded had
 nothing else to hope, than that Tlepolemus and Hiero might not approve of it.

I will relate to you this fact, O judges, most truly. I recollect that Pamphilus of
 Lilybaeum , a connection of mine by ties
 of hospitality, and a personal friend of mine, a man of the highest birth, told me,
 that when that man had taken from him, by his absolute power, an ewer made by the
 hand of Boethus, of exquisite workmanship and great weight, he went home very sad in
 truth, and greatly agitated, because a vessel of that sort, which had been left to
 him by his father and his forefathers, and which he was accustomed to use on days of
 festival, and on the arrival of ancient friends, had been taken from him. While I
 was sitting at home, said he, in great indignation, up comes one of the slaves of
 Venus; he orders me immediately to bring to the praetor some embossed goblets. I was
 greatly vexed, said he; I had two; I order them both to be taken out of the closet,
 lest any worse thing should happen, and to be brought after me to the praetor's
 house. When I got there the praetor was asleep; the Cibyratic brothers were walking
 about, and when they saw me, they said, Pamphilus, where are the cups? I show them
 with great grief;—they praise them.—I begin to complain that I shall have nothing
 left of any value at all, if my cups too were taken away. Then they, when they see
 me vexed, say, What are you willing to give us to prevent these from being taken
 from you? To make my story short, I said that I would give six hundred sesterces . Meantime the praetor summons us; he asks for
 the cups. Then they began to say to the praetor, that they had thought from what
 they had heard, that Pamphilus's cups were of some value, but that they were
 miserable things, quite unworthy of Verres's having them among his plate. He said,
 he thought so too.

So Pamphilus saved his exquisite goblets. And indeed, before I heard this, though I
 knew that it was a very trifling sort of accomplishment to understand things of that
 sort, yet I used to wonder that he had any knowledge of them at all, as I knew that
 in nothing whatever had he any qualities like a man. But when I heard this, I then for the
 first time understood that that was the use of these two Cibyratic brothers; that in
 his robberies he used his own hands, but their eyes. But he was so covetous of that
 splendid reputation of being thought to be a judge of such matters, that lately,
 (just observe the man's madness,) after his case was adjourned, when he was already
 as good as condemned, and civilly dead, at the time of the games of the circus, when
 early in the morning the couches were spread in preparation for a banquet at the
 house of Lucius Sisenna, a man of the first consideration, and when the plate was
 all set out, and when, as was suited to the dignity of Lucius Sisenna, the house was
 full of honourable men, he came to the plate, and began in a leisurely way to
 examine and consider every separate piece. Some marveled at the folly of the man,
 who, while his trial was actually going on, was increasing the suspicion of that
 covetousness of which he was accused; others marveled at his insensibility, that any
 such things could come into his head, when the time for judgment in his cause was so
 near at hand, and when so many witnesses had spoken against him. But Sisenna's
 servants, who, I suppose, had heard the evidence which had been given against him,
 never took their eyes off him, and never departed out of reach of the plate.

It is the part of a sagacious judge, from small circumstances to form his opinion
 of every man's covetousness or incontinence. And will any one believe that this man
 when praetor, was able to keep either his covetousness or his hands from the plate
 of the Sicilians, when, though a defendant, and a defendant within two days of
 judgment, a man in reality, and in the opinion of all men as good as already
 condemned, he could not in a large assembly restrain himself from handling and
 examining the plate of Lucius Sisenna?

But that my discourse may return to Lilybaeum , from which I have made this digression, there is a man
 named Diocles, the son-in-law of Pamphilus, of that Pamphilus from whom the ewer was
 taken away, whose surname is Popillius. From this man he took away every article on
 his sideboard where his plate was set out. He may say, if he pleases, that he had
 bought them. In fact, in this case, by reason of the magnitude of the robbery, an
 entry of it, I imagine, has been made in the account-books. He ordered Timarchides
 to value the plate. How did he do it? At as low a price as any one ever valued any
 thing presented to an actor. Although I have been for some time acting foolishly in
 saying as much about your purchases, and in asking whether you bought the things,
 and how, and at what price you bought them, when I can settle all that by one word.
 Produce me a written list of what plate you acquired in the province of Sicily , from whom, and at what price you bought each
 article.

What will you do? Though I ought not to ask you for these accounts, for I ought to
 have your account-books and to produce them. But you say that you never kept any
 accounts of your expenses in these years. Make me out at least this one which I am
 asking for, the account of the plate, and I will not mind the rest at present. “I
 have no writings of the sort; I cannot produce any accounts.” What then is to be
 done? What do you think that these judges can do? Your house was full of most
 beautiful statues already, before your praetorship; many were placed in your villas,
 many were deposited with your friends; many were given and presented to other
 people; yet you have no accounts speaking of any single one having been bought. All
 the plate in Sicily has been taken away.
 There is nothing left to any one that can be called his own. A scandalous defence is
 invented, that the praetor bought all that plate; and yet that cannot be proved by
 any accounts. If you do produce any accounts, still there is no entry in them how
 you have acquired what you have got. But of these years during which you say that
 you bought the greatest number of things, you produce no accounts at all. Must you
 not inevitably be, condemned, both by the accounts which you do, and by those which
 you do not produce?

You also took away at Lilybaeum whatever
 silver vessels you chose from Marcus Caelius, a Roman knight, a most excellent young
 man. You did not hesitate to take away the whole furniture, of Caius Cacurius, a
 most active and accomplished man, and of the greatest influence in his city. You
 took away, with the knowledge of every body, a very large and very beautiful table
 of citron-wood from Quintus Lutatius Diodorus, who, owing to the kind exertion of
 his interest by Quintus Catulus, was made a Roman citizen by Lucius Sulla. I do not
 object to you that you stripped and plundered a most worthy imitator of yours in his
 whole character, Apollonius, the son of Nico, a citizen of Drepanum , who is now called Aulus Clodius, of all
 his exquisitely wrought silver plate;—I say nothing of that. For he does not think
 that any injury has been done to him, because you came to his assistance when he was
 a ruined man, with the rope round his neck, and shared with him the property
 belonging to their father, of which he had plundered his wards at Drepanum. I am
 even very glad if you took anything from him, and I say that nothing was ever better
 done by you. But it certainly was not right that the statue of Apollo should have
 been taken away from Lyso of Lilybaeum , I a
 most eminent man, with whom you had been staying as a guest. But you will say that
 you bought it—I know that—for six hundred sesterces . So I suppose: I know it, I say; I will produce the accounts;
 and yet that ought not to have been done. Will you say that the drinking vessels
 with emblems of Lilybaeum on them were,
 bought from Heius, the minor to whom Marcellus is guardian, whom you had plundered
 of a large sum of money, or will you confess that they were taken by force?

But why do I enumerate all his ordinary iniquities in
 affairs of this sort, which appear to consist only in robberies committed by him,
 and in losses borne by those whom he plundered? Listen, if you please, O judges, to
 an action of such a sort as will prove to you clearly his extraordinary madness and
 frenzy, rather than any ordinary covetousness. 
 There is a man of Melita , called Diodorus,
 who has already given evidence before you. He has been now living at Lilybaeum many years; a man of great nobility at
 home, and of great credit and popularity with the people among whom he has settled,
 on account of his virtue. It is reported to Verres of this man that he has some
 exceedingly fine specimens of chased work; and among them two goblets called
 Thericlean, made by the hand of mentor with the most
 exquisite skill. And when Verres heard of this, he was inflamed with such a desire,
 not only of beholding, but also of appropriating them, that he summoned Diodorus,
 and demanded them. He replied, as was natural for a man who took great pride in
 them, that he had not got them at Lilybaeum ; that he had left them at Melita , in the house of a relation of his.

On this he immediately sends men on whom he can rely to Melita ; he writes to certain inhabitants of
 Melita to search out those vessels for
 him; he desires Diodorus to give them letters to that relation of his—the time
 appeared to him endless till he could see those pieces of plate. Diodorus, a prudent
 and careful man, who wished to keep his own property, writes to his relation to make
 answer to those men who came from Verres, that he had sent the cups to Lilybaeum a few days before. In the meantime he
 himself leaves the place. He preferred leaving his home, to staying in it and losing
 that exquisitely wrought silver work. But when Verres heard of this, he was so
 agitated that he seemed to every one to be raving, and to be beyond all question
 mad. Because he could not steal the plate himself, he said that he had been robbed
 by Diodorus of some exquisitely wrought vessels; he poured out threats against the
 absent Diodorus; he used to roar out before people; sometimes he could not restrain
 his tears. We have heard in the mythology of Eriphyla being so covetous that when
 she had seen a necklace, made, I suppose, of gold and jewels, she was so excited by
 its beauty, that she betrayed her husband for the sake of it. His covetousness was
 similar; but in one respect more violent and more senseless, because she was
 desiring a thing which she had seen, while his wishes were excited not only by his
 eyes, but even by his ears.

He orders Diodorus to be sought for over the whole province. He had by this time
 struck his camp, packed up his baggage, and left Sicily . Verres, in order by some means or other to bring the man back
 to the province, devises this plan, if it is to be called a plan, and not rather a
 piece of madness. He sets up one of the men he calls his hounds, to say that he
 wishes to institute a prosecution against Diodorus of Melita for a capital offence. At first all men wondered at such a
 thing being imputed to Diodorus, a most quiet man, and as far removed as any man
 from all suspicion, not only of crime, but of even the slightest irregularity. But
 it soon became evident, that all this was done for the sake of his silver. Verres
 does not hesitate to order the prosecution to be instituted; and that, I imagine,
 was the first instance of his allowing an accusation to be made against an absent
 man.

The matter was notorious over all Sicily ,
 that men were prosecuted for capital offences because the praetor coveted their
 chased silver plate; and that prosecutions were instituted against them not only
 when they were present, but even in their absence. Diodorus goes to Rome , and putting on mourning, calls on all his
 patrons and friends; relates the affair to every one. Earnest letters are written to
 Verres by his father, and by his friends, warning him to take care what he did, and
 what steps he took respecting Diodorus; that the matter was notorious and very
 unpopular; that he must be out of his senses; that this one charge would ruin him if
 he did not take care. At that time he considered his father, if not in the light of
 a parent, at least in that of a man. He had not yet sufficiently prepared himself
 for a trial; it was his first year in the province; he was not, as he was by the
 time of the affair of Sthenius, loaded with money. And so his frenzy was checked a
 little, not by shame, but by fear and alarm. He does not dare to condemn Diodorus;
 he takes his name out of the list of defendants while he is absent. In the meantime
 Diodorus, for nearly three years, as long as that man was praetor, was banished from
 the province and from his home.

Every one else, not only Sicilians, but Roman citizens too, settled this in their
 minds, that, since he had carried his covetousness to such an extent, there was
 nothing which any one could expect to preserve or retain in his own possession if it
 was admired ever so little by Verres. But after they understood that that brave man, Quintus Arrius, whom
 the province was eagerly looking for, was not his successor, they then settled that
 they could keep nothing so carefully shut up or hidden away, as not to be most open
 and visible to his covetousness. After that, he took away from an honourable and
 highly esteemed Roman knight, named Cnaeus Salidius, whose son he knew to be a
 senator of the Roman people and a judge, some beautiful silver horses which had
 belonged to Quintus Maximus. I did not mean to say this, O judges, for he bought
 those, he did not steal them;

I wish I had not mentioned them. Now he will boast, and have a fine ride on these
 horses. “I bought them, I have paid the money for them.” I have no doubt account
 books also will be produced. It is well worth while. Give me then the account-books.
 You are at liberty to get rid of this charge respecting Calidius, as long as I can
 get a sight of these accounts; still, if you had bought them, what ground had
 Calidius for complaining at Rome , that,
 though he had been living so many years in Sicily as a trader, you were the only person who had so despised and
 so insulted him, as to plunder him in common with all the rest of the Sicilians?
 what ground had he for declaring that he would demand his plate back again from you,
 if he had sold it to you of his own free will? Moreover, how could you avoid
 restoring it to Cnaeus Calidius; especially when he was such an intimate friend of
 Lucius Sisenna, your defender, and as you had restored their property to the other
 friends of Sisenna?

Lastly, I do not suppose you will deny that by the intervention of Potamo, a friend
 of yours, you restored his plate to Lucius Cordius, an honourable man, but not more
 highly esteemed than Cnaeus Calidius; and it was he who made the cause of the rest
 more difficult to plead before you; for though you had promised many men to restore
 them their property, yet, after Cordius had stated in his evidence that you had
 restored him his, you desisted from making any more restorations, because you saw
 that you lost your plunder, and yet could not escape the evidence against you. Under
 all other praetors Cnaeus Calidius, a Roman knight, was allowed to have plate finely
 wrought; he was permitted to be able from his own stores to adorn and furnish a
 banquet handsomely, when he had invited a magistrate or any superior officer. Many
 men in power and authority have been with Cnaeus Calidius at his house; no one was
 ever found so mad as to take from him that admirable and splendid plate; no one was
 found bold enough to ask for it; no one impudent enough to beg him to sell it.

For it is an arrogant thing, an intolerable thing, O judges, for a praetor to say
 to an honourable, and rich, and well-appointed man in his province, “Sell me those
 chased goblets.” For it is saying, “You do not deserve to have things which are so
 beautifully made; they are better suited to a man of my stamp.” Are you, O Verres,
 more worthy than Calidius? whom (not to compare your way of life with his, for they
 are not to be compared, but) I will compare you with in respect of this very dignity
 owing to which you make yourself out his superior. You gave eighty thousand sesterces to canvassing agents to procure your election as
 praetor; you gave three hundred thousand to an accuser not to press hardly upon you:
 do you, on that account, look down upon and despise the equestrian order? Is it on
 that account that it seemed to you a scandalous thing that Calidius should have
 anything that you admired rather than that you should?

He has been long boasting of this transaction with Calidius, and telling every one
 that he bought the things. Did you also buy that censer of Lucius Papilius, a man of
 the highest reputation, wealth, and honour, and a Roman knight? who stated in his
 evidence that, when you had begged for it to look at, you returned it with the
 emblems torn off; so that you may understand that it is all taste in that man, not
 avarice; that it is the fine work that he covets, not the silver. Nor was this
 abstinence exercised only in the case of Papirius; he practiced exactly the same
 conduct with respect to every censer in Sicily ; and it is quite incredible how many beautifully wrought
 censers there were. I imagine that, when Sicily was at the height of its power and opulence, there were
 extensive workshops in that island; for before that man went thither as praetor
 there was no house tolerably rich, in which there were not these things, even if
 there was no other silver plate besides; namely, a large dish with figures and
 images of the gods embossed on it, a goblet which the women used for sacred
 purposes, and a censer. And all these were antique, and executed with the most
 admirable skill, so that one may suspect everything else in Sicily was on a similar scale of magnificence; but
 that though fortune had deprived them of much, those things were still preserved
 among them which were retained for purposes of religion.

I said just now, O judges, that there were many censers, in almost every house in
 fact; I assert also, that now there is not even one left. What is the meaning of
 this? what monster, what prodigy did we send into the province? Does it not appear
 to you that he desired, when he returned to Rome , to satisfy not the covetousness of one man, not his own eyes
 only, but the insane passion of every covetous man, for as soon as he ever came into
 any city, immediately the Cibyratic hounds of his were slipped, to search and find
 cut everything. If they found any large vessel, any considerable work, they brought
 it to him with joy; if they could hunt out any smaller vessel of the same sort, they
 looked on those as a sort of lesser game, whether they were dishes, cups, censers,
 or anything else. What weepings of women, what lamentations do you suppose took
 place over these things? things which may perhaps seem insignificant to you, but
 which excite great and bitter indignation, especially among women, who grieve when
 those things are torn from their hands which they have been accustomed to use in
 religious ceremonies, which they have received from their ancestors, and which have
 always been in their family.

Do not now wait while I follow up this charge from door to door, and show you that
 he stole a goblet from Aeschylus, the Tyndaritan; a dish from another citizen of
 Tyndaris named Thraso; a censer from
 Nymphodorus of Agrigentum . When I produce
 my witnesses from Sicily he may select whom
 he pleases for me to examine about dishes, goblets, and censers. Not only no town,
 no single house that is tolerably well off will be found to have been free from the
 injurious treatment of this man; who, even if he had come to a banquet, if he saw
 any finely wrought plate, could not, O judges, keep his hands from it. There is a
 man named Cnaeus Pompeius Philo, who was a native of Tyndaris ; he gave Verres a supper at his visa
 in the country near Tyndaris ; he did
 what Sicilians did not dare to do, but what, because he was a citizen of Rome , he thought he could do with impunity, he put
 before him a dish on which were some exceedingly beautiful figures. Verres, the
 moment he saw it, determined to rob his host's table of that memorial of the Penates
 and of the gods of hospitality. But yet, in accordance with what I have said before
 of his great moderation, he restored the rest of the silver after he had torn off
 the figures; so free was he from all avarice!

What want you more? Did he not do the same thing to Eupolemus of Calacta, a noble
 man, connected with, and an intimate friend of the Luculli; a man who is now serving
 in the army under Lucius Lucullus? He was supping with him; the rest of the silver
 which he had set before him had no ornament on it, lest he himself should also be
 left without any ornament; but there were also two goblets, of no large size, but
 with figures on them. He, as if he had been a professional diner-out, who was not to
 go away without a present, on the spot, in the sight of all the other guests, tore
 off the figures. I do not attempt to enumerate all his exploits of this sort; it is
 neither necessary nor possible. I only produce to you tokens and samples of each
 description of his varied and universal rascality. Nor did he behave in these
 affairs as if he would some day or other be called to account for them, but
 altogether as if he was either never likely to be prosecuted, or else as if the more
 he stole, the less would be his danger when he was brought before the court;
 inasmuch as he did these things which I am speaking of not secretly, not by the
 instrumentality of friends or agents, but openly, from his high position, by his own
 power and authority.

When he had come to Catina , a wealthy,
 honourable, influential city, he ordered Dionysiarchus the proagorus, that is to
 say, the chief magistrate, to be summoned before him; he openly orders him to take
 care that all the silver plate which was in anybody's house at Catina , was collected together and brought to him.
 Did you not hear Philarchus of Centuripa, a man of the highest position as to noble
 birth, and virtue, and riches, say the same thing on his oath; namely, that Verres
 had charged and commanded him to collect together, and order to be conveyed to him,
 all the silver plate at Centuripa, by far the largest and wealthiest city in all
 Sicily ? In the same manner at Agyrium , all the Corinthian vessels there were
 there, in accordance with his command, were transported to Syracuse by the agency of Apollodorus, whom you
 have heard as a witness.

But the most extraordinary conduct of all was this; when that painstaking and
 industrious praetor had arrived at Haluntium, he would not himself go up into the
 town, because the ascent was steep and difficult; but he ordered Archagathus of
 Haluntium, one of the noblest men, not merely in his own city, but in all Sicily , to be summoned before him, and gave him a
 chance to take care that all the chased silver that there was at Haluntium, and
 every specimen of Corinthian work too, should be at once taken down from the town to
 the seaside. Archagathus went up into the town. That noble man, as one who wished to
 be loved and esteemed by his fellow citizens, was very indignant at having such an
 office imposed upon him, and did not know what to do. He announces the commands he
 has received. He orders every one to produce what they had. There was great
 consternation, for the tyrant himself had not gone away to any distance; lying on a
 litter by the sea-side below the town, he was waiting for Archagathus and the silver
 plate. What a gathering of people do you suppose took place in the sown? what an
 uproar? what weeping of women? they who saw it would have said that the Trojan horse
 had been introduced, and that the city was taken.

Vessels were brought out without their cases; others were wrenched out of the hands
 of women; many people's doors were broken open, and their locks forced. For what
 else can you suppose? Even if ever, at a time of war and tumult, arms are demanded
 of private citizens, still men give them unwillingly, though they know that they are
 giving them for the common safety. Do not suppose then that any one produced his
 carved plate out of his house for another man to steal, without the greatest
 distress. Everything is brought down to the shore. The Cibyratic brothers are
 summoned; they condemn some articles; whatever they approve of has its figures in
 relief or its embossed emblems torn off. And so the Haluntines, having had all their
 ornaments wrenched off, returned home with the plain silver.

Was there ever, O judges, a dragnet of such a sort as this in that province? People
 have sometimes during their year of office diverted some part of the public property
 to their own use, in the most secret manner; sometimes they even secretly plundered
 some private citizen of something; and still they were condemned. And if you ask me,
 though I am detracting somewhat from my own credit by saying so, I think those were
 the real accusers, who traced the robberies of such men as this by scent, or by some
 lightly imprinted footsteps; for what is it that we are doing in respect of Verres,
 who has wallowed in the mud till we can find him out by the traces of his whole
 body? Is it a great undertaking to say anything against a man, who while he was
 passing by a place, having his litter put down to rest for a little time, plundered
 a whole city, house by house; without condescending to any pretences, openly, by his
 own authority, and by an absolute command? But still, that he might be able to say
 that he had bought them, he orders Archagathus to give those men, to whom the plate
 had belonged, some little money, just for form's sake. Archagathus found a few who
 would accept the money, and those he paid. And still Verres never paid Archagathus
 that money. Archagathus intended to claim it at Rome ; but Cnaeus Lentulus Marcellinus demanded him, as you heard him
 state himself. Read the evidence of Archagathus, and of Lentulus,—

and that you may not imagine that the man wished to heap up such a mass of figures
 without any reason, just see at what rate he valued you, and the opinion of the
 Roman people, and the laws, and the courts of justice, and the Sicilian witnesses
 and traders. After he had collected such a vast number of figures that he had not
 left one single figure to anybody, he established an immense shop in the palace at
 Syracuse ; he openly orders all the
 manufacturers, and carvers, and goldsmiths to be summoned—and he himself had many in
 his own employ; he collects a great multitude of men; he kept them employed
 uninterruptedly for eight months, though all that time no vessels were made of
 anything but gold. In that time he had so skillfully wrought the figures which he
 had torn off the goblets and censers, into golden goblets, or had so ingeniously
 joined them into golden cups, that you would say that they had been made for that
 very purpose; and he, the praetor, who says that it was owing to his vigilance that
 peace was maintained in Sicily , was
 accustomed to sit in his tunic and dark cloak the greater part of the day in this
 workshop.

I would not venture, O judges, to mention these things, if I were not afraid that
 you might perhaps say that you had heard more about that man from others in common
 conversation, than you had heard from me in this trial; for who is there who has not
 heard of this workshop, of the golden vessels, of Verres's tunic and dark cloak?
 Name any respectable man you please out of the whole body of settlers at Syracuse , I will produce ham; there will not be
 one person who will not say that he has either seen this or heard of it.

Alas for the age! alas for the degeneracy of our manners! I will not mention
 anything of any great antiquity; there are many of you, O judges, who knew Lucius
 Piso, the father of this Lucius Piso, who was praetor. When he was praetor in
 Spain , in which province he was slain,
 somehow or other, while he was practicing his exercises in arms, the golden ring
 which he had was broken and crushed. As he wanted to get himself another ring, he
 ordered a goldsmith to be summoned into the forum before his throne of office, at
 Corduba , and openly weighed him out the
 gold. He ordered the man to set up his bench in the forum, and to make him a ring in
 the presence of every one. Perhaps in truth some may say that he was too exact, and
 to this extent any one who chooses may blame him, but no further. Still such conduct
 was allowable for him, for he was the son of Lucius Piso, of that man who first made
 the law about extortion and embezzlement.

It is quite ridiculous for me to speak of Verres now, when I have just been
 speaking of Piso the Thrifty; still, see what a difference there is between the men:
 that man, while he was making some sideboards full of golden vessels, did not care
 what his reputation was, not only in Sicily , but also at Rome in
 the court of justice; the other wished all Spain to know to half an ounce how much gold it took to make a
 praetor's ring. Forsooth, as the one proved his right to his name, so did the other
 to his surname. It is
 utterly impossible for me either to retain in my memory, or to embrace in my speech,
 all his exploits. I wish just to touch briefly on the different kinds of deeds, done
 by him, just as here the ring of Piso reminded me of what had otherwise entirely
 escaped my recollection. From how many honourable men do you imagine that that man
 tore the golden rings from off their fingers? He never hesitated to do so whenever
 he was pleased with either the jewels or the fashion of the ring belonging to any
 one. I am going to mention an incredible fact, but still one so notorious that I do
 not think that he himself will deny it.

When a letter had been brought to Valentius his interpreter from Agrigentum , by chance Verres himself noticed the
 impression on the seal; he was pleased with it, he asked where the letter came from;
 he was told, from Agrigentum . He sent
 letters to the men with whom he was accustomed to communicate, ordering that ring to
 be brought to him as soon as possible. And accordingly, in compliance with his
 letter, it was torn off the finger of a master of a family, a certain Lucius Titius,
 a Roman citizen. But that covetousness of his is quite beyond belief. For as he
 wished to provide three hundred couches beautifully covered, with all other
 decorations for a banquet, for the different rooms which he has, not only at
 Rome , but in his different villas, he
 collected such a number, that there was no wealthy house in all Sicily where he did not set up an embroiderer's shop.

There is a woman, a citizen of Segesta, very rich, and
 nobly born, by name Lamia . She, having
 her house full of spinning jennies, for three years was making him robes and
 coverlets, all dyed with purple; Attalus, a rich man at Netum ; Lyso at Lilybaeum ; Critolaus at Enna ; at Syracuse Aeschrio, Cleomenes, and Theomnastus; at Elorum Archonides and
 Megistus. My voice will fail me before the names of the men whom he employed in this
 way will; he himself supplied the purple—his friends supplied only the work, I dare
 say; for I have no wish to accuse him in every particular, as if it were not enough
 for me, with a view to accuse him, that he should have had so much to give, that he
 should have wished to carry away so many things; and, besides all that, this thing
 which he admits, namely, that he should have employed the work of his friends in
 affairs of this sort.

But now do you suppose that brazen couches and brazen candelabra were made at
 Syracuse for any one but for him the whole of that three years? He bought them, I
 suppose; but I am informing you so fully, O judges, of what that man did in his
 province as praetor, that he may not by chance appear to any one to have been
 careless, and not to have provided and adorned himself sufficiently when he had
 absolute power. I come
 now, not to a theft, not to avarice, not to covetousness, but to an action of that
 sort that every kind of wickedness seems to be contained in it, and to be in it; by
 which the immortal gods were insulted, the reputation and authority of the name of
 the Roman people was impaired, hospitality was betrayed and plundered, all the kings
 who were most friendly to us, and the nations which are under their rule and
 dominion, were alienated from us by his wickedness.

For you know that the kings of Syria , the
 boyish sons of King Antiochus, have lately been at Rome . And they came not on account of the kingdom of Syria ; for that they had obtained possession of
 without dispute, as they had received it from their father and their ancestors; but
 they thought that the kingdom of Egypt belonged to them and to Selene their mother. When they, being
 hindered by the critical state of the republic at that time, were not able to obtain
 the discussion of the subject as they wished before the senate, they departed for
 Syria , their paternal kingdom. One of
 them—the one whose name is Antiochus—wished to make his journey through Sicily . And so, while Verres was praetor, he came to
 Syracuse .

On this Verres thought that an inheritance had come to him, because a man whom he
 had heard, and on other accounts suspected had many splendid things with him, had
 come into his kingdom and into his power. He sends him presents—liberal enough—for
 all domestic uses; as much wine and oil as he thought fit; and as much wheat as he
 could want, out of his tenths. After that he invites the king himself to supper. He
 decorates a couch abundantly and magnificently. He sets out the numerous, and
 beautiful silver vessels, in which he was so rich; for he had not yet made all those
 golden ones. He takes care that the banquet shall be splendidly appointed and
 provided in every particular. Why need I make a long story of it? The king departed
 thinking that Verres was superbly provided with everything, and that he himself had
 been magnificently treated. After that, he himself invites the praetor to supper. He
 displays all his treasures; much silver, also not a few goblets of gold, which, as
 is the custom of kings, and especially in Syria , were studded all over with most splendid jewels. There was
 also a vessel for wine, a ladle hollowed out of one single large precious stone,
 with a golden handle, concerning which, I think, you heard Quintus Minutius speak, a
 sufficiently capable judge, and sufficiently credible witness.

Verres took each separate piece of plate into his hands, praised it—admired it. The
 king was delighted that that banquet was tolerably pleasant and agreeable to a
 praetor of the Roman people. After the banquet was over, Verres thought of nothing
 else, as the facts themselves showed, than how he might plunder and strip the king
 of everything before he departed from the province. He sends to ask for the most
 exquisite of the vessels which he had seen at Antiochus's lodgings. He said that he
 wished to show them to his engravers. The king, who did not know the man, most
 willingly sent them, without any suspicion of his intention. He sends also to borrow
 the jeweled ladle. He said that he wished to examine it more attentively; that also
 is sent to him.

Now, O judges, mark what followed; things which you have already heard, and which
 the Roman people will not hear now for the first time, and which have been reported
 abroad among foreign nations to the furthest corners of the earth. The kings, whom I
 have spoken of, had brought to Rome a
 candelabrum of the finest jewels, made with most extraordinary skill, in order to
 place it in the Capitol; but as they found that temple not yet finished, they could
 not place it there. Nor were they willing to display it and produce it in common, in
 order that it might seem more splendid when it was placed at its proper time in the
 shrine of the great and good Jupiter ; and
 brighter; also, as its beauty would come fresh and untarnished before the eyes of
 men. They determined, therefore, to take it back with them into Syria , with the intention, when they should hear
 that the image of the great and good
 Jupiter was dedicated, of sending ambassadors
 who should bring that exquisite and most beautiful present, with other offerings, to
 the Capitol.

The matter, I know not how, got to his ears. For the king had wished it kept
 entirely concealed; not because he feared or suspected anything, but because he did
 not wish many to feast their eyes on it before the Roman people. He begs the king,
 and entreats him most earnestly to send it to him; he says that he longs to look at
 it himself, and that he will not allow any one else to see it. Antiochus, being both
 of a childlike and royal disposition, suspected nothing of that man's dishonesty,
 and orders his servants to take it as secretly as possible, and well wrapped up, to
 the praetor's house. And when they brought it there, and placed it on a table,
 having taken off the coverings, Verres began to exclaim that it was a thing worthy
 of the kingdom of Syria , worthy of being a
 royal present, worthy of the Capitol. In truth, it was of such splendour as a thing
 must be which is made of the most brilliant and beautiful jewels; of such variety of
 pattern that the skill of the workmanship seemed to vie with the richness of the
 materials; and of such a size that it might easily be seen that it had been made not
 for the furniture of men, but for the decoration of a most noble temple. And when he
 appeared to have examined it sufficiently, the servants begin to take it up to carry
 it back again. He says that he wishes to examine it over and over again; that he is
 not half satiated with the sight of it; he orders them to depart and to leave the
 candelabrum. So they then return to Antiochus empty-handed.

The king at first feared nothing, suspected nothing. One day passed—two days—many
 days. It was not brought back. Then the king sends to Verres to beg him to return
 it, if he will be so good. He bids the slaves come again. The king begins to think
 it strange. He sends a second time. It is not returned. He himself calls on the man;
 he begs him to restore it to him. Think of the face and marvellous impudence of the
 man. That thing which he knew, and which he had heard from the king himself was to
 be placed in the Capitol, which he knew was being kept for the great and good
 Jupiter , and for the Roman people, that
 he began to ask and entreat earnestly to have given to him. When the king said that
 he was prevented from complying by the reverence due to Jupiter Capitolinus, and by
 his regard for the opinion of men, because many nations were witnesses to the fact
 of the candelabrum having been made for a present to the god, the fellow began to
 threaten him most violently. When he sees that he is no more influenced by threats
 than he had been by prayers, on a sadden he orders him to leave his province before
 night. He says, that he has found out that pirates from his kingdom were coming
 against Sicily .

The king, in the most frequented place in Syracuse , in the forum,—in the forum at Syracuse , I say, (that no man may suppose I am
 bringing forward a charge about which there is any obscurity, or imagining anything
 which rests on mere suspicion,) weeping, and calling gods and men to witness, began
 to cry out that Caius Verres had taken from him a candelabrum made of jewels, which
 he was about to send to the Capitol, and which he wished to be in that most splendid
 temple as a memorial to the Roman people of his alliance with and friendship for
 them. He said that he did not care about the other works made of gold and jewels
 belonging to him which were in Verres's hands, but that it was a miserable and
 scandalous thing for this to be taken from him. And that, although it had long ago
 been consecrated in the minds and intentions of himself and his brother, still, that
 he then, before that assembled body of Roman citizens, offered, and gave, and
 dedicated, and consecrated it to the great and good
 Jupiter , and that he invoked
 Jupiter himself as a witness of his
 intention and of his piety. What voice, what lungs, what power of mine can adequately express the indignation
 due to this atrocity? The King Antiochus, who had lived for two years at Rome in the sight of all of us, with an almost royal
 retinue and establishment,—though he had been the friend and ally of the Roman
 people; though his father, and his grandfather, and his ancestors, most ancient and
 honourable sovereigns, had been our firmest friends; though he himself is monarch of
 a most opulent and extensive kingdom, is turned headlong out of a province of the
 Roman people.

How do you suppose that foreign nations will take this? How do you suppose the news
 of this exploit of yours will be received in the dominions of other kings, and in
 the most distant countries of the world, when they hear that a king has been
 insulted by a praetor of the Roman people in his province? that a guest of the Roman
 people has been plundered? a friend and ally of the Roman people insultingly driven
 out? Know that your name and that of the Roman people will be an object of hatred
 and detestation to foreign nations. If this unheard-of insolence of Verres is to
 pass unpunished, all men will think, especially as the reputation of our men for
 avarice and covetousness has been very extensively spread, that this is not his
 crime only, but that of those who have approved of it. Many kings, many free cities,
 many opulent and powerful private men, cherish intentions of ornamenting the Capitol
 in such a way as the dignity of the temple and the reputation of our empire
 requires. And if they understand that you show a proper indignation at this kingly
 present being intercepted, they will then think that their zeal and their presents
 will be acceptable to you and to the Roman people. But if they hear that you have
 been indifferent to the complaint of so great a king, in so remarkable a case, in
 one of such bitter injustice, they will not be so crazy as to spend their time, and
 labour, and expense on things which they do not think will be acceptable to you.

And in this place I appeal to you, O Quintus
 Catulus; for I
 am speaking of your most honourable and most splendid monument. You ought to take
 upon yourself not only the severity of a judge with respect to this crime, but
 something like the vehemence of an enemy and an accuser. For, through the kindness
 of the senate and people of Rome , your
 honour is connected with that temple. Your name is consecrated at the same time as
 that temple in the everlasting recollection of men. It is by you that this case is
 to be encountered; by you, that this labour is to be undergone, in order that the
 Capitol, as it has been restored more magnificently, may also be adorned more
 splendidly than it was originally; that then that fire may seem to have been sent
 from heaven, not to destroy the temple of the great and good
 Jupiter , but to demand one for him more
 noble and more magnificent.

You have heard Quintus Minucius Rufus say, that King Antiochus stayed at his house
 while at Syracuse ; that he knew that
 this candelabrum had been taken to Verres's house; that he knew that it had not been
 returned. You heard, and you shall hear from the whole body of Roman settlers at
 Syracuse , that they will state to
 you that in their hearing it was dedicated and consecrated to the good and great
 Jupiter by King Antiochus. If you were
 not a judge, and this affair were reported to you, it would be your especial duty to
 follow it up; to reclaim the candelabrum, and to prosecute this cause. So that I do
 not doubt what ought to be your feelings as judge in this prosecution, when before
 any one else as judge you ought to be a much more vehement advocate and accuser than
 I am.

And to you, O judges, what can appear more scandalous or more intolerable than
 this? Shall Verres have at his own house a candelabrum, made of jewels and gold,
 belonging to the great and good Jupiter ?
 Shall that ornament be set out in his house at banquets which will be one scene of
 adultery and debauchery, with the brilliancy of which the temple of the great and
 good Jupiter ought to glow and to be lighted
 up? Shall the decorations of the Capitol be placed in the house of that most
 infamous debauchee with the other ornaments which he has inherited from Chelidon?
 What do you suppose will ever be considered sacred or holy by him, when he does not
 now think himself liable to punishment for such enormous wickedness? who dares to
 come into this court of justice, where he cannot, like all others who are arraigned,
 pray to the great and good Jupiter , and
 entreat help from him? from whom even the immortal gods are reclaiming their
 property, before that tribunal which was appointed for the benefit of men, that they
 might recover what had been extorted unjustly from them? Do we marvel that Minerva
 at Athens , Apollo at Delos , Juno at Samos , Diana at Perga, and that many other gods besides all over
 Asia and Greece , were plundered by him, when he could not keep his hands off
 the Capitol? That temple which private men are decorating and are intending to
 decorate out of their own riches, that Caius Verres would not suffer to be decorated
 by a king.

And, accordingly, after he had once conceived this nefarious wickedness, he
 considered nothing in all Sicily afterwards
 sacred or hallowed; and he behaved himself in his province for three years in such a
 manner that war was thought to have been declared by him, not only against men, but
 also against the immortal gods. Segesta is a very ancient town in Sicily , O judges, which its inhabitants assert was founded by Aeneas
 when he was flying from Troy and coming to
 this country. And accordingly the Segestans think that they are connected with the
 Roman people, not only by a perpetual alliance and friendship, but even by some
 relationship. This town, as the state of the Segestans was at war with the
 Carthaginians on its own account and of its own accord, was formerly stormed and
 destroyed by the Carthaginians; and everything which could be any ornament to the
 city was transported from thence to Carthage . There was among the Segestans a statue of Diana, of brass,
 not only invested with the most sacred character, but also wrought with the most
 exquisite skill and beauty. When transferred to Carthage , it only changed its situation and its worshippers; it
 retained its former sanctity. For on account of its eminent beauty it seemed, even
 to their enemies, worthy of being most religiously worshipped.

Some ages afterwards, Publius Scipio took Carthage , in the third Punic war; after which victory, (remark the
 virtue and carefulness of the man, so that you may both rejoice at your national
 examples of most eminent virtue, and may also judge tire incredible audacity of
 Verres worthy of the greater hatred by contrasting it with that virtue,) he summoned
 all the Sicilians, because he knew that during a long period of time Sicily had repeatedly been ravaged by the
 Carthaginians, and bids them seek for all they had lost, and promises them to take
 the greatest pains to ensure the restoration to the different cities of everything
 which had belonged to them. Then those things which had formerly been removed from
 Himera, and which I have mentioned before, were restored to the people of Thermae;
 some things were restored to the Gelans, some to the Agrigentines; among which was
 that noble bull, which that most cruel of all tyrants, Phalaris, is said to have
 had, into which he was accustomed to put men for punishment, and to put fire under.
 And when Scipio restored that bull to the Agrigentines, he is reported to have said,
 that he thought it reasonable for them to consider whether it was more advantageous
 to the Sicilians to be subject to their own princes, or to be under the dominion of
 the Roman people, when they had the same thing as a monument of the cruelty of their
 domestic masters, and of our liberality.

At that time the same Diana of which I am speaking is restored with the greatest
 care to the Segestans. It is taken back to Segesta ; it is replaced in its ancient situation, to the greatest joy
 and delight of all the citizens. It was placed at Segesta on a very lofty pedestal,
 on which was cut in large letters the name of Publius Africanus; and a statement was
 also engraved that “he had restored it after having taken Carthage .” It was worshipped by the citizens;
 it was visited by all strangers; when I was quaestor it was the very first thing,
 they showed me. It was a very large and tall statue with a flowing robe, but in
 spite of its large size it gave the idea of the age and dress of a virgin; her
 arrows hung from her shoulder, in her left hand she carried her bow, her right hand
 held a burning torch.

When that enemy of all sacred things, that violator of all religious scruples saw
 it, he began to burn with covetousness and insanity, as if he himself had been
 struck with that torch. He commands the magistrates to take the statue down and give
 it to him; and declares to them that nothing can be more agreeable to him. But they
 said that it was impossible for them to do so; that they were prevented from doing
 so, not only by the most extreme religious reverence, but also by the greatest
 respect for their own laws and courts of justice. Then he began to entreat this
 favour of them, then to threaten them, then to try and excite their hopes, then to
 arouse their fears. They opposed to his demands the name of Africanus; they said
 that it was the gift of the Roman people; that they themselves had no right over a
 thing which a most illustrious general, having taken a city of the enemy, had chosen
 to stand there as a monument of the victory of the Roman people.

As he did not relax in his demand, but urged it every day with daily increasing
 earnestness, the matter was brought before their senate. His demand raises a violent
 outcry on all sides. And so at that time, and at his first arrival at Segesta , it is refused. Afterwards, whatever
 burdens could be imposed on any city in respect of exacting sailors and rowers, or
 in levying corn, he imposed on the Segestans beyond all other cities, and a good
 deal more than they could bear. Besides that, he used to summon their magistrates
 before him; he used to send for all the most noble and most virtuous of the
 citizens, to hurry them about with him to all the courts of justice in the province,
 to threaten every one of them separately to be the ruin of him, and to announce to
 them all in a body that he would utterly destroy their city. Therefore, at last, the
 Segestans, subdued by much ill-treatment and by great fear, resolved to obey the
 command of the praetor. With great grief and lamentation on the part of the whole
 city, with many tears and wailings on the part of all the men and women, a contract
 is advertised for taking down the statue of Diana.

See now with what religious reverence it is regarded. Know, O judges, that among
 all the Segestans none was found, whether free man or slave, whether citizen or
 foreigner, to dare to touch that statue. Know that some barbarian workmen were
 brought from Lilybaeum ; they at length,
 ignorant of the whole business, and of the religious character of the image, agreed
 to take it down for a sum of money, and took it down. And when it was being taken
 out of the city, how great was the concourse of women! how great was the weeping of
 the old men! some of whom even recollected that day when that same Diana being
 brought back to Segesta from Carthage ,
 had announced to them, by its return, the victory of the Roman people. How different
 from that time did this day seem! then the general of the Roman people, a most
 illustrious man, was bringing back to the Segestans the gods of their fathers,
 recovered from an enemy's city; now a most base and profligate praetor of the same
 Roman people, was taking away, with the most nefarious wickedness, those very same
 gods from a city of his allies. What is more notorious throughout all Sicily than that all the matrons and virgins of
 Segesta came together when Diana was being taken out of their city? that they
 anointed her with precious unguents? that they crowned her with chaplets and
 flowers? that they attended her to the borders of their territory with frankincense
 and burning perfumes?

If at the time you, by reason of your covetousness and audacity, did not, while in
 command, fear these religious feelings of the population, do you not fear them now,
 at a time of such peril to yourself and to your children? What man, against the will
 of the immortal gods, or what god, when you so trample on all the religious
 reverence due to them, do you think will come to your assistance? Has that Diana
 inspired you, while in quiet and at leisure, with no religious awe;—she, who though
 she had seen two cities, in which she was placed stormed and burnt, was yet twice
 preserved from the flames and weapons of two wars; she who, though she changed her
 situation owing to the victory of the Carthaginians, yet did not lose her holy
 character; and who, by the valour of Publius Africanus afterwards recovered her old
 worship, together with her old situation? And when this crime had been executed, as
 the pedestal was empty, and the name of Publius Africanus carved on it, the affair
 appeared scandalous and intolerable to every one, that not only was religion
 trampled on, but also that Caius Verres had taken away the glory of the exploits,
 the memorial of the virtues, the monument of the victory of Publius Africanus, that
 most gallant of men.

But when he was told afterwards of the pedestal and the inscription, he thought
 that men would forget the whole affair, if he took away the pedestal to which was
 serving as a sort of signpost to point out his crime. And so, by his command, the
 Segestans contracted to take away the pedestal too; and the terms of that contract
 were read to you from the public registers of the Segestans, at the former pleading.
 Now, O Publius Scipio,
 I appeal to you; to you, I say, a most virtuous and accomplished youth; from you I
 request and demand that assistance which is due to your family and to your name. Why
 do you take the part of that man who has embezzled the credit and honour of your
 family? Why do you wish him to be defended? Why am I undertaking what is properly
 your business? Why am I supporting a burden which ought to fall on you?—Marcus
 Tullius is reclaiming the monuments of Publius Africanus; Publius Scipio is
 defending the man who took them away. Though it is a principle handed down to us
 from our ancestors, for every one to defend the monuments of his ancestors, in such
 a way as not even to allow them to be decorated by one of another name, will you
 take the part of that man who is not charged merely with having in some degree
 spoilt the view of the monuments of Publius Scipio, but who has entirely removed and
 destroyed them?

Who then, in the name of the immortal gods, will defend the memory of Publius
 Scipio now that he is dead? who will defend the memorials and evidences of his
 valour, if you desert and abandon them; and not only allow them to be plundered and
 taken away, but even defend their plunderer and destroyer? The Segestans are
 present, your clients, the allies and friends of the Roman people. They inform you
 that Publius Africanus, when he had destroyed Carthage , restored the image of Diana to their ancestors; and that
 was set up among the Segestans arid dedicated in the name of that general;—that
 Verres has had it taken down and carried away, and as far as that is concerned, has
 utterly effaced and extinguished the name of Publius Scipio. They entreat and pray
 you to restore the object of their worship to them, its proper credit and glory to
 your own family, so enabling them by your assistance to recover from the house of a
 robber, what they recovered from the city of their enemies by the beneficence of
 Publius Africanus. What
 can you reply to them with honour, or what can they do but implore the aid of you
 and your good faith? They are present, they do implore it. You, O Publius, can
 protect the honour of your family renown; you can, you have every advantage which
 either fortune or nature ever gives to men. I do not wish to anticipate you in
 gathering the fruit that belongs to you; I am not covetous of the glory which ought
 to belong to another. It does not correspond to the modesty of my disposition, while
 Publius Scipio, a most promising young man, is alive and well, to put myself forward
 as the defender and advocate of the memorials of Publius Scipio.

Wherefore, if you will undertake the advocacy of your family renown, it will
 behoove me not only to be silent about your monuments, but even to be glad that the
 fortune of Publius Africanus, though dead, is such, that his honour is defended by
 those who are of the same family as himself, and that it requires no adventitious
 assistance. But if your friendship with that man is an obstacle to you,—if you think
 that this thing which I demand of you is not so intimately connected with your
 duty,—then I, as your locum tenens , will succeed to
 your office, I will undertake that business which I have thought not to belong to
 me. Let that proud aristocracy give up complaining that the Roman people willingly
 gives, and at all times has given, honours to new and diligent men. It is a foolish
 complaint that virtue should be of the greatest influence in that city which by its
 virtue governs all nations. Let the image of Publius Africanus be in the houses of
 other men; let heroes now dead be adorned with virtue and glory. He was such a man,
 he deserved so well of the Roman people, that he deserves to be recommended to the
 affection, not of one single family, but of the whole state. And so it partly does
 belong to me also to defend his honours with all my power, because I belong to that
 city which he rendered great, and illustrious, and renowned; and especially, because
 I practice, to the utmost of my power, those virtues in which he was
 preeminent,—equity, industry, temperance, the protection of the unhappy, and hatred
 of the dishonest; a relationship in pursuits and habits which is almost as important
 as that of which you boast, the relationship of name and family.

I reclaim from you, O Verres, the monument of Publius Africanus; I abandon the
 cause of the Sicilians, which I undertook; let there be no trial of you for
 extortion at present; never mind the injuries of the Segestans; let the pedestal of
 Publius Africanus be restored; let the name of that invincible commander be engraved
 on it anew; let that most beautiful statue, which was recovered when Carthage was taken, be replaced. It is not I,
 the defender of the Sicilians,—it is not I, your prosecutor,—they are not the
 Segestans who demand this of you; but he who has taken on himself the defence and
 the preservation of the renown and glory of Publius Africanus. I am not afraid of
 not being able to give a good account of my performance of this duty to Publius
 Servilius the judge; who, as he has performed great exploits, and raised very many
 monuments of his good deeds, and has a natural anxiety about them, will be glad,
 forsooth, to leave them an object of care and protection not only to his own
 posterity, but to all brave men and good citizens; and not as a mark for the plunder
 of rogues. I am not afraid of its displeasing you, O Quintus Catulus, to whom the
 most superb and splendid monument in the whole world belongs, that there should be
 as many guardians of such monuments as possible, or that all good men should think
 it was a part of their duty to defend the glory of another.

And indeed I am so far moved by the other robberies and atrocities of that fellow,
 as to think them worthy of great reproof; but that might be sufficient for them. But
 in this instance I am roused to such indignation, that nothing appears to me
 possible to be more scandalous or more intolerable. Shall Verres adorn his house,
 full of adultery, full of debauchery, full of infamy, with the monuments of
 Africanus? Shall Verres face the memorial of that most temperate and religious man,
 the image of the ever virgin Diana, in that house in which the iniquities of harlots
 and pimps are incessantly being practised?

But is this the only monument of Africanus which you have violated? What! did you
 take away from the people of Tyndaris an image of Mercury most beautifully made, and placed there by
 the beneficence of the same Scipio? And how? O ye immortal gods! How audaciously,
 how infamously, how shamelessly did you do so! You have lately, judges, heard the
 deputies from Tyndaris , most
 honourable men, and the chief men of that city, say that the Mercury, which in their
 sacred anniversaries was worshipped among them with the extremest religious
 reverence, which Publius Africanus, after he had taken Carthage , had given to the Tyndaritans, not
 only as a monument of his victory, but as a memorial and evidence of their loyalty
 to and alliance with the Roman people, had been taken away by the violence, and
 wickedness, and arbitrary power of this man; who, when he first came to their city,
 in a moment, as if it were not only a becoming, but an indispensable thing to be
 done?—as if the senate had ordered it and the Roman people had sanctioned it,—in a
 moment, I say, ordered them to take the statue down and to transport it to
 Messana .

And as this appeared a scandalous thing to those who were present and who heard it,
 it was not persevered in by him during the first period of his visit; but when he
 departed, he ordered Sopater, their chief magistrate, whose statement you have
 heard, to take it down. When he refused, he threatened him violently; and then he
 left the city. The magistrate refers the matter to the senate; there is a violent
 outcry on all sides. To make my story short, some time afterwards he comes to that
 city again. Immediately he asks about the statue. He is answered that the senate
 will not allow it to be removed; that capital punishment is threatened to any one
 who should touch it without the orders of the senate: the impiety of removing is
 also urged. Then says he, “What do you mean by talking to me of impiety? or about
 punishment? or about the senate? I will not leave you alive; you shall be scourged
 to death if the statue is not given up.” Sopater with tears reports the matter to
 the senate a second time, and relates to them the covetousness and the threats of
 Verres. The senate gives Sopater no answer, but breaks up in agitation and
 perplexity. Sopater, being summoned by the praetor's messenger, informs him of the
 state of the case, and says that it is absolutely impossible.

And all these things (for I do not think that I ought to omit any particular of his
 impudence) were done openly in the middle of the assembly, while Verres was sitting
 on his chair of office, in a lofty situation. It was the depth of winter; the
 weather, as you heard Sopater himself state, was bitterly cold; heavy rain was
 falling; when that fellow orders the lictors to throw Sopater headlong down from the
 portico on which he himself was sitting, and to strip him naked. The command was
 scarcely, out of his mouth, before you might have seen him stripped and surrounded
 by the lictors. All thought that the unhappy and innocent man was going to be
 scourged. They were mistaken. Do you think that Verres would scourge without any
 reason an ally and friend of the Roman people? He is not so wicked. All vices are
 not to be found in that man; he was never cruel. He treated the man with great
 gentleness and clemency. In the middle of the forum there are some statues of the
 Marcelli, as there are in most of the other towns of Sicily ; out of these he selected the statue of Caius Marcellus, whose
 services to that city and to the whole province were most recent and most important.
 On that statue he orders Sopater, a man of noble birth in his city, and at that very
 time invested with the chief magistracy, to be placed astride and bound to it.

What torture he suffered when he was bound naked in the open air, in the rain and
 in the cold, must be manifest to every body. Nor did he put an end to this insult
 and barbarity, till the people and the whole multitude, moved by the atrocity of his
 conduct and by pity for his victim, compelled the senate by their outcries to
 promise him that statue of Mercury. They cried out that the immortal gods themselves
 would avenge the act, and that in the meantime it was not fit that an innocent man
 should be murdered. Then the senate comes to him in a body, and promises him the
 statue. And so Sopater is taken down scarcely alive from the statue of Marcellus, to
 which he had almost become frozen. I cannot adequately accuse that man if I were to
 wish to do so; it requires not only genius, but an extraordinary amount of skill.

This appears to be a single crime, this of the Tyndaritan Mercury, and it is
 brought forward by me as a single one; but there are many crimes contained in
 it—only I do not know how to separate and distinguish them. It is a case of money
 extorted, for he took away from the allies a statue worth a large sum of money. It
 is a case of embezzlement, because he did not hesitate to appropriate a public
 statue belonging to the Roman people, taken from the spoils of the enemy, placed
 where it was in the name of our general. It is a case of treason, because he dared
 to overturn and to carry away monuments of our empire, of our glory, and of our
 exploits. It is a case of impiety, because he violated the most solemn principles of
 religion. It is a case of inhumanity, because he invented a new and extraordinary
 description of punishment for an innocent man, an ally and friend of our nation.

But what the other crime is, that I am unable to say; I know not by what name to
 call the crime which he committed with respect to the statue of Caius Marcellus.
 What is the meaning of it? Is it because he was the patron of the Sicilians? What
 then? What has that to do with it? Ought that fact to have had influence to procure
 assistance, or to bring disaster on his clients and friends? Was it your object to
 show that patrons were no protection against your violence? Who is there who would
 not be aware that there is greater power in the authority of a bad man who is
 present, than in the protection of good men who are absent? Or do you merely wish to
 prove by this conduct, your unprecedented insolence, and pride, and obstinacy? You
 thought, I imagine, that you were taking something from the dignity of the Marcelli?
 And therefore now the Marcelli are not the patrons of the Sicilians. Verres has been
 substituted in their place.

What virtue or what dignity did you think existed in you, that you should attempt
 to transfer to yourself, and to take away from these most trusty and most ancient
 patrons, so illustrious a body of clients as that splendid province? Can you with
 your stupidity, and worthlessness, and laziness defend the cause, I will not say of
 all Sicily , but even of one, the very
 meanest of the Sicilians? Was the statue of Marcellus to serve you for a pillory for
 the clients of the Marcelli? Did you out of his honour seek for punishments for
 those very men who had held him in honour? What followed? What did you think would
 happen to your statues? was it that which did happen? For the people of Tyndaris threw down the statue of Verres, which
 he had ordered to be erected in his own honour near the Marcelli, and even on a
 higher pedestal, the very moment that they heard that a successor had been appointed
 to him. The fortune of
 the Sicilians has then given you Caius Marcellus for a judge, so that we may now
 surrender you, fettered and bound, to appease the injured sanctity of him to whose
 statue Sicilians were bound while you were praetor.

And in the first place, O judges, that man said that the people of Tyndaris had sold this statue to Caius Marcellus
 Aeserninus, who is here present. And he hoped that Caius Marcellus himself would
 assert thus much for his sake though it never seemed to me to be very likely that a
 young man born in that rank, the patron of Sicily , would lend his name to that fellow to enable him to transfer
 his guilt to another. But still I made such provision, and took such precaution
 against every possible bearing of the case, that if ally one had been found who was
 ever so anxious to take the guilt and crime of Verres upon himself, still he would
 not have taken anything by his motion, for I brought down to court such witnesses,
 and I had with me such written documents, that it could not have been possible to
 have entertained a doubt about that man's actions.

There are public documents to prove that that Mercury was transported to Messana at the expense of the state. They state at
 what expense; and that a man named Poleas was ordered by the public authority to
 superintend the business—what more would you have? Where is he? He is close at hand,
 he is a witness, by the command of Sopater the Proagorus.—Who is he? The man who was
 bound to the statue. What? where is he? He is a witness—you have seen the man, and
 you have heard his statement. Demetrius, the master of the gymnastic school,
 superintended the pulling down of the statue, because he was appointed to manage
 that business; What? is it we who say this? No, he is present himself; moreover,
 that Verres himself lately promised at Rome , that he would restore that statue to the deputies, if the
 evidence already given in the affair were removed, and if security were given that
 the Tyndaritans would not give evidence against him, has been stated before you by
 Zosippus and Hismenias, most noble men, and the chief men of the city of Tyndaris .

What? did you not also at Agrigentum take
 away a monument of the same Publius Scipio, a most beautiful statue of Apollo, on
 whose thigh there was the name of Myron, inscribed in diminutive silver letters, out
 of that most holy temple of Aesculapius? And when, O judges, he had privately
 committed that atrocity, and when in that most nefarious crime and robbery he had
 employed some of the most worthless men of the city as his guides and assistants,
 the whole city was greatly excited. For the Agrigentines were regretting at the same
 time the kindness of Africanus, and a national object of their worship, and an
 ornament of their city, and a record of their victory, and an evidence of their
 alliance with us. And therefore a command is imposed on those men who were the chief
 men of the city, and a charge is given to the quaestors and aediles to keep watch by
 night over the sacred edifices. And, indeed, at Agrigentum , (I imagine, on account of the great number and virtue of
 these men, and because great numbers of Roman citizens, gallant and intrepid and
 honourable men, live and trade in that town among the Agrigentines in the greatest
 harmony,) he did not dare openly to carry off, or even to beg for the things that
 took his fancy.

There is a temple of Hercules at Agrigentum , not far from the forum, considered very holy and greatly
 reverenced among the citizens. In it there is a brazen image of Hercules himself,
 than which I cannot easily tell where I have seen anything finer; (although I am not
 very much of a judge of those matters, though I have seen plenty of specimens;) so
 greatly venerated among them, O judges, that his mouth and his chin are a little
 worn away, because men in addressing their prayers and congratulations to him, are
 accustomed not only to worship the statue, but even to kiss it. While Verres was at
 Agrigentum , on a sudden, one stormy
 night, a great assemblage of armed slaves, and a great attack on this temple by
 them, takes place, under the leading of Timarchides. A cry is raised by the watchmen
 and guardians of the temple. And, at first, when they attempted to resist them and
 to defend the temple, they are driven back much injured with sticks and bludgeons.
 Afterwards, when the bolts were forced open, and the doors dashed in, they endeavour
 to pull down the statue and to overthrow it with levers; meantime, from the outcries
 of the keepers, a report got abroad over the whole city, that the national gods were
 being stormed, not by the unexpected invasion of enemies, or by the sudden irruption
 of pirates, but that a well armed and fully equipped band of fugitive slaves from
 the house and retinue of the praetor had attacked them.

No one in Agrigentum was either so advanced
 in age, or so infirm in strength, as not to rise up on that night, awakened by that
 news, and to seize whatever weapon chance put into his hands. So in a very short
 time men are assembled at the temple from every part of the city. Already, for more
 than an hour, numbers of men had been labouring at pulling down that statue; and all
 that time it gave no sign of being shaken in any part; while some, putting levers
 under it, were endeavouring to throw it down, and others, having bound cords to all
 its limbs, were trying to pull it towards them. On a sudden all the Agrigentines
 collect together at the place; stones are thrown in numbers; the nocturnal soldiers
 of that illustrious commander run away—but they take with them two very small
 statues, in order not to return to that robber of all holy things entirely
 empty-handed. The Sicilians are never in such distress as not to be able to say
 something facetious and neat; as they did on this occasion. And so they said that
 this enormous boar had a right to be accounted one of the labours of Hercules, no
 less than the other boar of Erymanthus.

The people of Assorum, gallant and loyal men, afterwards imitated this brave
 conduct of the Agrigentines, though they did not come of so powerful or so
 distinguished a city. There is a river called Chrysas, which flows through the
 territories of Assorum. Chrysas, among that people, is considered a god, and is
 worshipped with the greatest reverence. His temple is in the fields, near the road
 which goes from Assorum to Enna . In it
 there is an image of Chrysas, exquisitely made of marble. He did not dare to beg
 that of the Assorians on account of the extraordinary sanctity of that temple; so he
 entrusts the business to Tlepolemus and Hiero. They, having prepared and armed a
 body of men, come by night; they break in the doors of the temple; the keepers of
 the temple and the guardians hear them in time. A trumpet the signal of alarm well
 known to all the neighbourhood, is sounded; men come in from the country, Tlepolemus
 is turned out and put to fight; nor was anything missed out of the temple of Chrysas
 except one very diminutive image of brass.

There is a temple of the mighty mother Cybele at Enguinum, for I must new not only
 mention each instance with the greatest brevity, but I must even pass over a great
 many, in order to come to the greater and more remarkable thefts and atrocities of
 this sort which this man has committed. In this temple that same Publius Scipio, a
 man excelling in every possible good quality, had placed breastplates and helmets of
 brass of Corinthian workmanship, and some huge ewers of a similar description, and
 wrought with the same exquisite skill, and had inscribed his own name upon them. Why
 should I make any more statements or utter any further complaints about that man's
 conduct? He took away, O judges, every one of those things. He left nothing in that
 most holy temple except the traces of the religion he had trampled on, and the name
 of Publius Scipio. The spoils won from the enemy, the memorials of our commanders,
 the ornaments and decorations of our temples, will hereafter, when these illustrious
 names are lost, be reckoned in the furniture and appointments of Caius Verres.

Are you, forsooth, the only man who delights in Corinthian vases? Are you the best
 judge in the world of the mixture of that celebrated bronze, and of the delicate
 tracery of that work? Did not the great Scipio, that most learned and accomplished
 mall, under stand it too? But do you, a man without one single virtue, without
 education, without natural ability, and without any information, understand them and
 value them? Beware lest he be seen to have surpassed you and those other men who
 wished to be thought so elegant, not only in temperance, but in judgment and taste;
 for it was because he thoroughly understood how beautiful they were, that he thought
 that they were made, not for the luxury of men, but for the ornamenting of temples
 and cities, in order that they might appear to our posterity to be holy and sacred
 monuments.

Listen also, O judges, to the man's singular covetousness, audacity and madness,
 especially in polluting those sacred things, which not only may not be touched with
 the hands, but which may not be violated even in thought. There is a shrine of
 Ceres among the Catenans of the same holy
 nature as the one at home, and worshipped as the goddess is worshipped among foreign
 nations, and in almost every country in the world. In the inmost part of that shrine
 there was an extremely ancient statue of
 Ceres , as to which men were not only
 ignorant of what sort it was, but even of its existence. For the entrance into that
 shrine does not belong to men, the sacred ceremonies are accustomed to be performed
 by women and virgins. Verres's slaves stole this statue by night out of that most
 holy and most ancient temple. The next day the priestesses of
 Ceres , and the female attendants of that
 temple, women of great age, noble and of proved virtue, report the affair to their
 magistrates. It appeared to all a most bitter, and scandalous, and miserable
 business.

Then that man, influenced by the atrocity of the action, in order that all
 suspicion of that crime might be removed from himself, employs some one connected
 with him by ties of hospitality to find a man whom he might accuse of having done
 it, and bids him take care that he be convicted of the accusation, so that he
 himself might not be subject to the charge. The matter is not delayed. For when he
 had departed from Catina , an information is
 laid against a certain slave. He is accused; false witnesses are suborned against
 him; the whole senate sits in judgment on the affair, according to the laws of the
 Catenans. The priestesses are summoned; they are examined secretly in the
 senate-house, and asked what had been done, and how they thought that the statue had
 been carried off. They answer that the servants of the praetor had been seen in the
 temple. The matter, which previously had not been very obscure, began to be clear
 enough by the evidence of the priestesses. The judges deliberate; the innocent slave
 is acquitted by every vote, in order that you may the more easily be able to condemn
 this man by all your votes.

For what is it that you ask, O Verres? What do you hope for? What do you expect?
 What god or man do you think will come to your assistance? Did you send slaves to
 that place to plunder a temple, where it was not lawful for free citizens to go, not
 even for the purpose of praying? Did you not hesitate to lay violent hands on those
 things from which the laws of religion enjoined you to keep even your eyes? Although
 it was not even because you were charmed by the eye that you were led into this
 wicked and nefarious conduct; for you coveted what you had never seen. You took a
 violent fancy, I say, to that which you had not previously beheld. From your ears
 did you conceive this covetousness, so violent that no fear, no religious scruple,
 no power of the gods, no regard for the opinion of men could restrain it.

Oh! but you had heard of it, I suppose, from some good man, from some good
 authority. How could you have done that, when you could never have heard of it from
 any man at all? You heard of it, therefore, from a woman; since men could not have
 seen it nor known of it. What sort of woman do you think that she must have been, O
 judges? What a modest woman must she have been to converse with Verres! What a pious
 woman, to show him a plan for robbing a temple! But it is no great wonder if those
 sacred ceremonies which are performed by the most extreme chastity of virgins and
 matrons were violated by his adultery and profligacy. What, then, are we to think? Is this the
 only thing that he began to desire from mere hearing, when he had never seen it
 himself? No, there were many other things besides; of which I will select the
 plundering of that most noble and ancient temple, concerning which you heard
 witnesses give their evidence at the former pleading. Now, I beseech you, listen to
 the same story once more, and attend carefully as you hitherto have done.

There is an island called Melita , O
 judges, separated from Sicily by a
 sufficiently wide and perilous navigation, in which there is a town of the same
 name, to which Verres never went, though it was for three years a manufactory to him
 for weaving women's garments. Not far from that town, on a promontory, is an ancient
 temple of Juno, which was always considered so holy, that it was not only always
 kept inviolate and sacred in those Punic wars, which in those regions were carried
 on almost wholly by the naval forces, but even by the bands of pirates which ravage
 those seas. Moreover, it has been handed down to us by tradition, that once, when
 the fleet of King Masinissa was forced to put into these ports, the king's
 lieutenant took away some ivory teeth of an incredible size out of the temple, and
 carried them into Africa , and gave them to
 Masinissa; that at first the king was delighted with the present, but afterwards,
 when he heard where they had come from, he immediately sent trustworthy men in a
 quinquereme to take those teeth back; and that there was engraved on them in Punic
 characters, “that Masinissa the king had accepted them ignorantly; but that, when he
 knew the truth, he had taken care that they should be replaced and restored.” There
 was besides an immense quantity of ivory, and many ornaments, among which were some
 ivory victories of ancient workmanship, and wrought with exquisite skill.

Not to dwell too long on this, he took care to have all these things taken down and
 carried off at one swoop by means of the slaves of the Venus whom he had sent
 thither for that purpose. 
 O ye immortal gods! what sort of man is it that I am accusing? Who is it that I am
 prosecuting according to our laws, and by this regular process? Concerning whom is
 it that you are going to give your judicial decision? The deputies from Melita sent by the public authority of their state,
 say that the shrine of Juno was plundered; that that man left nothing in that most
 holy temple; that that place, to which the fleets of enemies often came, where
 pirates are accustomed to winter almost every year, and which no pirate ever
 violated, no enemy ever attacked before, was so plundered by that single man, that
 nothing whatever was left in it. What, then, now are we to say of him as a
 defendant, of me as an accuser, of this tribunal? Is he proved guilty of grave
 crimes, or is he brought into this court on mere suspicion? Gods are proved to have
 been carried off, temples to have been plundered, cities to have been stripped of
 everything. And of those actions he has left himself no power of denying one, no
 plea for defending one. In every particular he is convicted by me; he is detected by
 the witnesses; he is overwhelmed by his own admissions; he is caught in the evident
 commission of guilt; and even now he remains here, and in silence recognises his own
 crimes as I enumerate them.

I seem to myself to have been too long occupied with one
 class of crime. I am aware, O judges, that I have to encounter the weariness of your
 ears and eyes at such a repetition of similar cases; I will, therefore, pass over
 many instances. But I entreat you, O judges, in the name of the immortal gods, in
 the name of these very gods of whose honour and worship we have been so long
 speaking, refresh your minds so as to attend to what I am about to mention, while I
 bring forward and detail to you that crime of his by which the whole province was
 roused, and in speaking of which you will pardon me if I appear to go back rather
 far, and trace the earliest recollections of the religious observances in question.
 The importance of the affair will not allow me to pass over the atrocity of his
 guilt with brevity.

It is an old opinion, O judges, which can be proved from the most ancient records
 and monuments of the Greeks, that the whole island of Sicily was consecrated to
 Ceres and Libera. Not only did all other
 nations think so but the Sicilians themselves were so convinced of it, that it
 appeared a deeply rooted and innate belief in their minds. For they believe that
 these goddesses were born in these districts, and that corn was first discovered in
 this land, and that Libera was carried off, the same goddess whom they call
 Proserpina, from a grove in the territory of Enna , a place which, because it is situated in the centre of the
 island, is called the navel of Sicily . And
 when Ceres wished to seek her and trace her
 out, she is said to have lit her torches at those flames which burst out at the
 summit of Aetna , and carrying these torches
 before her, to have wandered over the whole earth.

But Enna , where those things which I am
 speaking of are said to have been done, is in a high and lofty situation, on the top
 of which is a large level plain, and springs of water which are never dry. And the
 whole of the plain is cut off and separated, so as to be difficult of approach.
 Around it are many lakes and groves, and beautiful flowers at every season of the
 year; so that the place itself appears to testify to that abduction of the virgin
 which we have heard of from our boyhood. Near it is a cave turned towards the north, of unfathomable depth,
 where they say that Father Pluto suddenly rose out of the earth in his chariot, and
 carried the virgin off from that spot, and that on a sudden, at no great distance
 from Syracuse , he went down beneath
 the earth, and that immediately a lake sprang up in that place; and there to this
 day the Syracusans celebrate anniversary festivals with a most numerous assemblage
 of both sexes On account
 of the antiquity of this belief, because in those places the traces and almost the
 cradles of those gods are found, the worship of
 Ceres of Enna prevails to a wonderful extent, both in private and in public
 over all Sicily . In truth, many prodigies
 often attest her influence and divine powers. Her present help is often brought to
 many in critical circumstances, so that this island appears not only to be loved,
 but also to be watched over and protected by her.

Nor is it the Sicilians only, but even all other tribes and nations greatly worship
 Ceres of Enna . In truth, if initiation into those sacred mysteries of the
 Athenians sought for with the greatest avidity, to which people
 Ceres is said to have come in that long
 wandering of hers, and then she brought them corn. How much greater reverence ought
 to be paid to her by those people among whom it is certain that she was born, and
 first discovered corn. And, therefore, in the time of our fathers, at a most
 disastrous and critical time to the republic, when, after the death of Tiberius
 Gracchus, there was a fear that great dangers were portended to the state by various
 prodigies, in the consulship of Publius Mucius and Lucius Calpurnius, recourse was
 had to the Sibylline books, in which it was found set down, “that the most ancient
 Ceres ought to be appeased.” Then,
 priests of the Roman people, selected from the most honourable college of decemvirs,
 although there was in our own city a most beautiful and magnificent temple of
 Ceres , nevertheless went as far as
 Enna . For such was the authority and
 antiquity of the reputation for holiness of that place, that when they went thither,
 they seemed to be going not to a temple of
 Ceres , but to
 Ceres herself.

I will not din this into your ears any longer. I have been some time afraid that my
 speech may appear unlike the usual fashion of speeches at trials unlike the daily
 method of speaking. This I say, that this very Ceres , the most ancient, the most holy, the very chief of all sacred
 things which are honoured by every people, and in every nation, was carried off by
 Caius Verres from her temple and her home. Ye who have been to Enna , have seen a statue of
 Ceres made of marble, and in the other
 temple a statue of Libera. They are very colossal and very beautiful, but not
 exceedingly ancient. There was one of brass, of moderate size, but extraordinary
 workmanship, with the torches in its hands, very ancient, by far the most ancient of
 all those statues which are in that temple; that he carried off, and yet he was not
 content with that.

Before the temple of Ceres , in an open and
 an uncovered place, there are two statues, one of
 Ceres , the other of Triptolemus, very
 beautiful, and of colossal size. Their beauty was their danger, but their size their
 safety, because the taking of them down and carrying them off appeared very
 difficult. But in the right hand of
 Ceres there stood a beautifully wrought image
 of Victory, and this he had wrenched out of the hand of
 Ceres and carried off. What now must be his feelings at the
 recollection of his crimes, when I, at the mere enumeration of them, am not only
 roused to indignation in my mind, but even shudder over my whole body? For thoughts
 of that temple, of that place, of that holy religion come into my mind. Everything
 seems present before my eyes,—the day on which, when I had arrived at Enna , the priests of
 Ceres came to meet me with garlands of
 vervain, and with fillets; the concourse of citizens, among whom, while I was
 addressing them, there was such weeping and groaning that the most bitter grief
 seemed to have taken possession of the whole.

They did not complain of the absolute way in which the tenths were levied, nor of
 the plunder of property, nor of the iniquity of tribunals, nor of that man's
 unhallowed lusts, nor of his violence, nor of the insults by which they had been
 oppressed and overwhelmed. It was the divinity of
 Ceres , the antiquity of their sacred
 observances, the holy veneration due to their temple, which they wished should have
 atonement made to them by the punishment of that most atrocious and audacious man.
 They said that they could endure everything else, that to everything else they were
 indifferent. This indignation of theirs was so great, that you might suppose that
 Verres, like another king of hell, had come to Enna and had carried off, not Proserpina, but
 Ceres herself. And, in truth, that city
 does not appear to be a city, but a shrine of
 Ceres . The people of Enna think that
 Ceres dwells among them; so that they
 appear to me not to be citizens of that city, but to be all priests, to be all
 ministers and officers of Ceres .

Did you dare to take away out of Enna the
 statue of Ceres ? Did you attempt at
 Enna to wrench Victory out of the hand of
 Ceres ? to tear one goddess from the
 other?—nothing of which those men dared to violate, or even to touch, whose
 qualities were all more akin to wickedness than to religion. For while Publius
 Popillius and Publius Rupilius were consuls, slaves, runaway slaves, and barbarians,
 and enemies, were in possession of that place; but yet the slaves ware not so much
 slaves to their own masters, as you are to your passions; nor did the runaways flee
 from their masters as far as you flee from all laws and from all right; nor were the
 barbarians as barbarous in language and in race as you were in your nature and your
 habits; nor were the enemies as much enemies to men as you are to the immortal gods.
 How, then, can a man beg for any mercy who has surpassed slaves in baseness, runaway
 slaves in rashness, barbarians in wickedness, and enemies in inhumanity?

You heard Theodorus and Numinius and Nicasio, deputies from Enna , say, in the name of their state, that they had
 this commission from their fellow-citizens, to go to Verres, and to demand from him
 the restoration of the statues of Ceres and
 of Victory. And if they obtained it then they were to adhere to the ancient customs
 of the state of Enna , not to give any
 public testimony against him although he had oppressed Sicily , since these were the principles which they had received from
 their ancestors. But if he did not restore them, then they were to go before the
 tribunal, to inform the judges of the injuries they had received, but, far above all
 things, to complain of the insults to their religion. And, in the name of the
 immortal gods I entreat you, O judges, do not you despise, do not you scorn or think
 lightly of their complaints. The injuries done to our allies are the present
 question; the authority of the laws is at stake; the reputation and the honesty of
 our courts of justice is at stake. And though all these are great considerations,
 yet this is the greatest of all,—the whole province is so imbued with religious
 feeling, such a superstitious dread arising out of that man's conduct has seized
 upon the minds of all the Sicilians, that whatever public or private misfortunes
 happen, appear to befall them because of that man's wickedness.

You have heard the Centuripans, the Agyrians, the Catenans, the Herbitans, the
 Ennans, and many other deputies say, in the name of their states, how great was the
 solitude in their districts, how great the devastation, how universal the flight of
 the cultivators of the soil how deserted, how uncultivated, how desolate every place
 was. And although there are many and various injuries done by that man to which
 these things are owing, still this one cause, in the opinion of the Sicilians, is
 the most weighty of all; for, because of the insults offered to
 Ceres , they believe that all the crops
 and gifts of Ceres have perished in these
 districts. Bring remedies, O judges, to the insulted religion of the allies;
 preserve your own, for this is not a foreign religion, nor one with which you have
 no concern. But even if it were, if you were unwilling to adopt it yourselves, still
 you ought to be willing to inflict heavy punishment on the man who had violated it.

But now that the common religion of all nations is attacked in this way, now that
 these sacred observances are violated which our ancestors adopted and imported from
 foreign countries, and have honoured ever since,—sacred observances, which they
 called Greek observances, as in truth they were,—even if we were to wish to be
 indifferent and cold about these matters, how could we be so? I will mention the sacking of one city,
 also, and that the most beautiful and highly decorated of all, the city of
 Syracuse . And I will produce my
 proofs of that, O judges, in order at length to conclude and bring to an end the
 whole history of offences of this sort. There is scarcely any one of you who has not
 often heard how Syracuse was taken by
 Marcus Marcellus, and who has not sometimes also read the account in our annals.
 Compare this peace with that war; the visit of this praetor with the victory of that
 general; the debauched retinue of the one with the invincible army of the other; the
 lust of Verres with the continence of Marcellus;—and you will say that Syracuse was built by the man who took it; was
 taken by the man who received it well established and flourishing.

And for the present I omit those things which will be mentioned, and have been
 already mentioned by me in an irregular manner in different parts of my speech—what
 the market-place of the Syracusans, which at the entrance of Marcellus was preserved
 unpolluted by slaughter, on the arrival of Verres overflowed with the blood of
 innocent Sicilians; that the harbour of the Syracusans, which at that time was shut
 against both our fleets and those of the Carthaginians, was, while Verres was
 praetor, open to Cilician pirates, or even to a single piratical galley. I say
 nothing of the violence offered to people of noble birth, of the ravishment of
 matrons, atrocities which then, when the city was taken, were not committed, neither
 through the hatred of enemies, nor through military licence, nor through the customs
 of war or the rights of victory. I pass over, I say, all these things which were
 done by that man for three whole years. Listen rather to acts which are connected
 with those matters of which I have hitherto been speaking.

You have often heard that the city of Syracuse is the greatest of the Greek cities, and the most beautiful
 of all. It is so, O judges, as it is said to be; for it is so by its situation,
 which is strongly fortified, and which is on every side by which you can approach
 it, whether by sea or land, very beautiful to behold. And it has harbours almost
 enclosed within the walls, and in the sight of the whole city, harbours which have
 different entrances, but which meet together, and are connected at the other end. By
 their union a part of the town, which is called the island, being separated from the
 rest by a narrow arm of the sea, is again joined to and connected with the other by
 a bridge.

That city is so great that it may be said to consist of four cities of the largest
 size; one of which, as I have said, is that “Island,” which, surrounded by two
 harbours, projects out towards the mouth and entrance of each. In it there is a
 palace which did belong to king Hiero, which our praetors are in the habit of using;
 in it are many sacred buildings, but two, which have a great pre-eminence over all
 the others,—one a temple of Diana, and the other one, which before the arrival of
 that man was the most ornamented of all, sacred to Minerva. At the end of this
 island is a fountain of sweet water, the name of which is Arethusa, of incredible
 size, very full of fish, which would be entirely overwhelmed by the waves of the
 sea, if it were not protected from the sea by a rampart and dam of stone.

There is also another city at Syracuse , the name of which is Achradina, in which there is a very
 large forum, most beautiful porticoes, a highly decorated town-hall, a most spacious
 senate-house, and a superb temple of Jupiter Olympius; and the other districts of
 the city are joined together by one broad unbroken street, and divided by many cross
 streets, and by private houses. There is a third city, which because in that
 district there is an ancient temple of Fortune, is called Tyche, in which there is a
 spacious gymnasium, and many sacred buildings, and that district is the most
 frequented and the most populous. There is also a fourth city, which, because it is
 the last built, is called Neapolis , in
 the highest part of which there is a very large theatre, and, besides that there are
 two temples of great beauty, one of Ceres ,
 the other of Libera, and a statue of Apollo, which is called Temenites, very
 beautiful and of colossal size; which, if he could have moved them, he would not
 have hesitated to carry off.

Now I will return to Marcellus, that I may not appear to have entered into this
 statement without any reason. He, when with his powerful army he had taken this
 splendid city, did not think it for the credit of the Roman people to destroy and
 extinguish this splendour, especially as no danger could possibly arise from it, and
 therefore he spared all the buildings, public as well as private, sacred as well as
 ordinary, as if he had come with his army for the purpose of defending them, not of
 taking them by storm. With respect to the decorations of the city, he had a regard
 to his own victory, and a regard to humanity, he thought it was due to his victory
 to transport man, things to Rome which
 might be an ornament to this city, and due to humanity not utterly to strip the
 city, especially as it was one which he was anxious to preserve.

In this division of the ornaments, the victory of Marcellus did not covet more for
 the Roman people than his humanity reserved to the Syracusans. The things which were
 transported to Rome we see before the
 temples of Honour and of Virtue, and also in other places. He put nothing in his own
 house, nothing in his gardens, nothing in his suburban villa; he thought that his
 house could only be an ornament to the city if he abstained from carrying the
 ornaments which belonged to the city to his own house. But he left many things of
 extraordinary beauty at Syracuse ; he
 violated not the respect due to any god; he laid hands on none. Compare Verres with
 him; not to compare the man with the man,—no such injury must be done to such a man
 as that, dead though he be; but to compare a state of peace with one of war, a state
 of law and order, and regular jurisdiction, with one of violence and martial law,
 and the supremacy of arms; to compare the arrival and retinue of the one with the
 victory and army of the other.

There is a temple of Minerva in the island, of
 which I have already spoken, which Marcellus did not touch, which he left full of
 its treasures and ornaments, but which was so stripped and plundered by Verres, that
 it seems to have been in the hands, not of any enemy,—for enemies, even in war,
 respect the rites of religion, and the customs of the country,—but of some barbarian
 pirates. There was a cavalry battle of their king Agathocles, exquisitely painted in
 a series of pictures, and with these pictures the inside walls of the temple were
 covered. Nothing could be more noble than those paintings; there was nothing at
 Syracuse that was thought more worthy
 going to see. These pictures, Marcus Marcellus, though by that victory of his he had
 divested everything of its sacred inviolability of character, still, out of respect
 for religion, never touched; Verres, though, in consequence of the long peace, and
 the loyalty of the Syracusan people, he had received them as sacred and under the
 protection of religion, took away all those pictures, and left naked and unsightly
 those walls whose decorations had remained inviolate for so many ages, and had
 escaped so many wars:

Marcellus, who had vowed that if he took Syracuse he would erect two temples at Rome , was unwilling to adorn the temple which he was going to build
 with these treasures which were his by right of capture; Verres, who was bound by no
 vows to Honour or Virtue, as Marcellus was, but only to Venus and to Cupid,
 attempted to plunder the temple of Minerva. The one was unwilling to adorn gods in
 the spoil taken from gods, the other transferred the decorations of the virgin
 Minerva to the house of a prostitute. Besides this, he took away out of the same
 temple twenty-seven more pictures beautifully painted; among which were likenesses
 of the kings and tyrants of Sicily , which
 delighted one, not only by the skill of the painter, but also by reminding us of the
 men, and by enabling us to recognise their persons. And see now, how much worse a
 tyrant this man proved to the Syracusans than any of the old ones, as they, cruel as
 they were, still adorned the temples of the immortal gods, while this man took away
 the monuments and ornaments from the gods.

But now what shall I say of the folding-doors of that temple? I am afraid that
 those who have not seen these things may think that I am speaking too highly of, and
 exaggerating everything, though no one ought to suspect that I should be so
 inconsiderate as to be selling that so many men of the highest reputation,
 especially when they are judges in this cause, who have been at Syracuse , and who have seen all these things
 themselves, should be witnesses to my rashness and falsehood. I am able to prove
 this distinctly, O judges, that no more magnificent doors, none more beautifully
 wrought of gold and ivory, ever existed in an, temple. It is incredible how many
 Greeks have left written accounts of the beauty of these doors: they, perhaps, may
 admire and extol them too much; be it so, still it is more honourable for our
 republic, O judges, that our general, in a time of war, should have left those
 things which appeared to them so beautiful, than that our praetor should have
 carried them off in a time of peace. On the folding-doors were some subjects most
 minutely executed in ivory; all these he caused to be taken out; he tore off and
 took away a very tine head of the Gorgon with snakes for hair; and he showed, too,
 that he was influenced not only by admiration for the workmanship, but by a desire
 of money and gain; for he did not hesitate to take away also all the golden knobs
 from these folding-doors, which were numerous and heavy; and it was not the
 workmanship of these, but the weight which pleased him. And so he left the
 folding-doors in such state, that, though they had formerly contributed greatly to
 the ornament of the temple, they now seemed to have been made only for the purpose
 of shutting it up.

Am I to speak also of the spears made of grass? for I saw that you were excited at
 the name of them when the witnesses mentioned them. They were such that it was
 sufficient to have seen them once, as there was neither any manual labour in them,
 nor any beauty, but simply an incredible size, which it would be quite sufficient
 even to hear of, and too much to see them more than once. Did you covet even those?

For the Sappho which was taken away out of the town-hall affords you so reasonable
 an excuse, that it may seem almost allowable and pardonable. That work of Silanion,
 so perfect, so elegant, so elaborate, (I will not say what private man, but) what
 nation could be so worthy to possess, as the most elegant and learned Verres?
 Certainly, nothing will be said against it. If any one of us, who are not as happy,
 who cannot be as refined as that man, should wish to behold anything of the sort,
 let him go to the temple of Good Fortune, to the monument of Catulus, to the portico
 of Metellus; let him take pains to get admittance into the Tusculan villa of any one
 of those men; let him see the forum when decorated, if Verres is ever so kind as to
 lend any of his treasures to the aediles. Shall Verres have all these things at
 home? shall Verres have his house full of his villas crammed with, the ornaments of
 temples and cities? Will you still, O judges, bear with the hobby, as he calls it,
 and pleasures of this vile artisan? a man who was born in such a rank, educated in
 such a way, and who is so formed both in mind and body, that he appears a much
 fitter person to take down statues than to appropriate them.

And how great a regret this Sappho which he carried off left behind her, can
 scarcely be told; for in the first place it was admirably made, and, besides, it had
 a very noble Greek epigram engraved upon the pedestal; and would not that learned
 man, that Grecian, who is such an acute judge of these matters, who is the only man
 who understands them, if he had understood one letter of Greek, have taken that away
 too? for now, because it is engraved on an empty pedestal, it both declares what was
 once, on the pedestal, and proves that it has been taken away. What shall I say
 more? Did you not take away the statue of Paean from out of the temple of
 Aesculapius, beautifully made, sacred, and holy as it was? a statue which all men
 went to see for its beauty, and worshipped for its sacred character. What more? was
 not the statue of Aristaeus openly taken away by your command out of the temple of
 Bacchus?

What more? did you not take away out of the temple of
 Jupiter that most holy statue of Jupiter
 Imperator, which the Greeks call *)/ourios , most
 beautifully made? What next? did you hesitate to take away out of the temple of
 Libera, that most exquisite bust of Parian marble, which we used to go to see? And
 that Paean used to be worshipped among that people together with Aesculapius, with
 anniversary sacrifices. Aristaeus, who being, as the Greeks report, the son of
 Bacchus, is said to have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them
 together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple.

But how great do you suppose was the honour paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own
 temple? You may collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great was
 the religious reverence attached to that statue of the same appearance and form
 which Flaminius brought out of Macedonia ,
 and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were said to be in the whole world three
 statues of Jupiter Imperator, of the same class, all beautifully made: one was that
 one from Macedonia , which we have seen in
 the Capitol; a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the mouth of the
 Euxine Sea ; the third was that which was
 at Syracuse , till Verres came as
 praetor. Flaminius removed the first from its habitation, but only to place it in
 the Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth.

But as to the one that is at the entrance of the Euxine, that, though so many wars
 have proceeded from the shores of that sea, and though so many have been poured into
 Pontus , has still remained inviolate and
 untouched to this day. This third one, which was at Syracuse , which Marcus Marcellus, when in arms
 and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the religion of the place, which
 both the citizens of, and settlers in Syracuse were used to worship, and strangers not only visited, but
 often venerated, Caius Verres took away from the temple of
 Jupiter .

To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that
 more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were
 owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently
 for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been
 greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought
 for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of
 carrying it away. At
 present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on
 that account pass over—how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful
 goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every saved temple
 at Syracuse ;

and therefore, O judges, those men who are accustomed to take strangers about to
 all those things which are worth going to see, and to show them every separate
 thing, whom they call mystagogi, (or cicerones,) now have their description of
 things reversed; for as they formerly used to show what there was in every place, so
 now they show what has been taken from every place. What do
 you think, then? Do you think that those men are affected with but a moderate
 indignation? Not so, O judges: in the first place, because all men are influenced by
 religious feeling, and think that their paternal gods, whom they have received from
 their ancestors, are to be carefully worshipped and retained by themselves; and
 secondly, because this sort of ornament, these works and specimens of art, these
 statues and paintings, delight men of Greek extraction to an excessive degree;
 therefore by their complaints we can understand that these things appear most bitter
 to those men, which perhaps may seem trifling and contemptible to us. Believe me, O
 judges, although I am aware to a certainty that you yourselves hear the same things,
 that though both our allies and foreign nations have during these past years
 sustained many calamities and injuries, yet men of Greek extraction have not been,
 and are not, more indignant at any than at this ruthless plundering of their temples
 and altars.

Although that man may say that he bought these things, as he is accustomed to say,
 yet, believe me in this, O judges,—no city in all Asia or in all Greece has ever
 sold one statue, one picture, or one decoration of the city, of its own free will to
 anybody. Unless, perchance, you suppose that, after strict judicial decisions had
 ceased to take place at Rome , the Greeks
 then began to sell these things, which they not only did not sell when there were
 courts of justice open, but which they even used to buy up; or unless you think that
 Lucius Crassus, Quintus Scaevola, Caius Claudius, most, powerful men, whose most
 splendid aedileships we have seen had no dealings in those sort of matters with the
 Greeks, but that those men had such dealings who became aediles after the
 destruction of the courts of justice.

Know also that that false presence of purchase was more bitter to the cities than
 if any one were privately to filch things, or boldly to steal them and carry them
 off. For they think it the most excessive baseness, that it should be entered on the
 public records that the city was induced by a price, and by a small price too, to
 sell and alienate those things which it had received from men of old. In truth, the
 Greeks delight to a marvellous degree in those things, which we despise. And
 therefore our ancestors willingly allowed those things to remain in numbers among
 the allies, in order that they might be as splendid and as flourishing as possible
 under our dominion; and among those nations whom they rendered taxable or tributary,
 still they left these
 things, in order that they who take delight in those things which to us seem
 insignificant, might have them as pleasures and consolations in slavery.

What do you think that the Rhegians, who now are Roman citizens, would take to
 allow that marble Venus to be taken from them? What would the Tarentines take to
 lose the Europa sitting on the Bull? or the Satyr which they have in the temple of
 Vesta? or their other monuments? What would the Thespians take to lose the statue of
 Cupid, the only object for which any one ever goes to see Thespiae ? What would the men of Cnidos take for their marble Venus? or the Coans for
 their picture of her? or the Ephesians for Alexander? the men of Cyzicus for their Ajax or Medea? What would the
 Rhodians take for Ialysus ? the Athenians
 for their marble Bacchus, or their picture of Paralus, or their brazen Heifer, the
 work of Myron? It would be a long business and an unnecessary one, to mention what
 is worth going to see among all the different nations in all Asia and Greece ; but that is the reason why I am enumerating these things,
 because I wish you to consider that an incredible indignation must be the feeling of
 those men from whose cities these things are carried away.

And to say nothing of other nations, judge of the Syracusans themselves. For when I
 went to Syracuse , I originally
 believed what I had heard at Rome from that
 man's friends, that the city of Syracuse , on account of the inheritance of Heraclius, was no less
 friendly to him than the city of the Mamertines, because of their participation in
 all his booty and robberies. And at the same time I was afraid that, owing to the
 influence of the high-born and beautiful women at whose will he had directed all the
 measures of his praetorship for three years, and of the men to whom they were
 married, I should be opposed not only by an excessive lenity, but even by a feeling
 of liberality towards that man, if I were to seek for any evidence out of the public
 records of the Syracusans.

Therefore when at Syracuse I was
 chiefly with Roman citizens; I copied out their papers; I inquired into their
 injuries. As I was a long time occupied by that business, in order to rest a little
 and to give my mind a respite from care, I returned to those fine documents of
 Carpinatius; in which, in company with some of the most honourable knights of the
 body of Roman settlers, I unraveled the case of those Verrutii, whom I have
 mentioned before, but I expected no aid at all, either publicly or privately, from
 the Syracusans, nor had I any idea of asking for any. While I was doing this, on a
 sudden Heraclius came to me, who was in office at Syracuse , a man of high birth, who had been priest of
 Jupiter , which is the highest honour
 among the Syracusans; he requests of me and of my brother, if we have no objection,
 to go to their senate; that they were at that moment assembled in full numbers in
 the senate-house, and he said that he made this request to us to attend by command
 of the senate.

At first we were in doubt what to do; but afterwards it soon occurred to us that we
 ought not to shun that assembly or that place. Therefore we came to the senate-house; they all rise at
 our entry to do us honour. We sat down at the request of the magistrates. Diodorus
 the son of Timarchides, who was the first man in that body both in influence and in
 age, and also as it seemed to me in experience and knowledge of business, began to
 speak; and the first sentence of his speech was to this effect—That the senate and
 people of Syracuse were grieved and
 indignant, that, though in all the other cities of Sicily I had informed the senate and people of what I proposed for
 their advantage or for their safety, and though I had received from them all
 commissions, deputies, letters and evidence, yet in that city I had done nothing of
 that sort. I answered, that deputies from the Syracusans had not been present at
 Rome in that assembly of the Sicilians
 when my assistance was entreated by the common resolution of all the deputations,
 and when the cause of the whole of Sicily was entrusted to me; and that I could not ask that any decree
 should be passed against Caius Verres in that senate-house in which I saw a gilt
 statue of Caius Verres.

And after I said that, such a groaning ensued at the sight and mention of the
 statue, that it appeared to have been placed in the senate-house as a monument of
 his wickednesses and not of his services. Then every one for himself, as fast as
 each could manage to speak, began to give me information of those things which I
 have just now mentioned; to tell me that the city was plundered—the temples stripped
 of their treasures—that of the inheritance of Heraclius, which he had adjudged to
 the men of the palaestra, he had taken by far the greatest share himself; and
 indeed, that they could not expect that he should care for the men of the palaestra,
 when he had taken away even the god who was the inventor of oil; that that statue
 had neither been made at the public expense, nor erected by public authority, but
 that those men who had been the sharers in the plunder of the inheritance of
 Heraclius, had had it made and placed where it was; and that those same men had been
 the deputies at Rome , who had been his
 assistants in dishonesty, his partners in his thefts and the witnesses of his
 debaucheries; and that therefore I ought the less to wonder if they were wanting to
 the unanimity of the deputies and to the safety of Sicily .

When I perceived that their indignation at that man's injuries was not only not
 less, but almost greater than that of the rest of the Sicilians, then I explained my
 own intentions to them, and my whole plan and system with reference to the whole of
 the business which I had undertaken; then I exhorted them not to be wanting to the
 common cause and the common safety, and to rescind that panegyric which they had
 voted a few days before, being compelled, a, they said, by violence and fear.
 Accordingly, O judges, the Syracusans, that man's clients and friends, do this.
 First of all, they produce to me the public documents which they had carefully
 stored up in the most sacred part of the treasury; in which they show me that
 everything, which I have said had been taken away, was entered, and even more things
 than I was able to mention. And they were entered in this way. “What had been taken
 out of the temple of Minerva .. This,... and that.” “What was missing out of the
 temple of Jupiter .” “What was missing out of
 the temple of Bacchus.” As each individual had had the charge of protecting and
 preserving those things, so it was entered; that each, when according to law he gave
 in his accounts, being bound to give up what he had received, had begged that he
 might be pardoned for the absence of these things and that all had accordingly been
 released from liability on that account, and that it was kept secret; all which
 documents I took care to have sealed up with the public seal and brought away.

But concerning the public panegyric on him this explanation was given: that at
 first, when the letters arrived from Verres about the panegyric, a little while
 before my arrival, nothing had been decreed; and after that, when some of his
 friends urged them that it ought to be decreed, they were rejected with the greatest
 outcry and the bitterest reproaches; but when I was on the point of arriving, then
 he who at that time was the chief governor had commanded them to decree it, and that
 it had been decreed in such a manner that the panegyric did him more damage than it
 could have done him good. So now, judges, do you receive the truth of that matter
 from me just as it was shown to me by them.

It is a custom at Syracuse , that, if
 a motion on any subject is brought before the senate, whoever wishes, gives his
 opinion on it. No one is asked by name for his sentiments; nevertheless, those are
 accustomed to speak first of their own accord, and naturally, according as they are
 superior in honour or in age; and that precedence is yielded to them by the rest;
 but, if at any time all are silent, then they are compelled to speak by lot. This
 was the custom when the motion was made respecting the panegyric of Verres. On which
 subject at first great numbers speak, in order to delay coming to any vote, and
 interpose this objection, that formerly, when they had heard that there was a
 prosecution instituted against Sextus Peducaeus, who had deserved admirably well of
 that city and of the whole province, and when, in return for his numerous and
 important services, they wished to vote a panegyric on him, they had been prohibited
 from doing so by Caius Verres; and that it would be an unjust thing, although
 Peducaeus had now no need of their praise, still not to vote that which at one time
 they had been eager to vote, before decreeing what they would only decree from
 compulsion.

All shout in assent, and say approvingly that that is what ought to be done. So the
 question about Peducaeus is put to the senate. Each man gave his opinion in order,
 according as he had precedence in age and honour. You may learn this from the
 resolution itself; for the opinions delivered by the chief men are generally
 recorded. Read— [The list of speeches made on the subject of Sextus Peducaeus is
 read.] It says who were the chief supporters of the motion. The vote is carried.
 Then the question about Verres is put. Tell me, I pray, what happened. [The list of
 speeches made on the subject of Caius Verres....] Well what comes next? [As no one
 rose, and no one delivered his opinion....] What is this? [They proceed by lot.] Why
 was this? Was no one a willing praiser of your praetorship, or a willing defender of
 you from danger, especially when by being so he might have gained favour with the
 praetor? No one. Those very men who used to feast with you, your advisers and
 accomplices, did not venture to utter a word. In that very senate-house in which a
 statue of yourself and a naked statue of your son were standing, was there no one
 whom even your naked son in a province stripped naked could move to compassion?

Moreover they inform me also of this, that they had passed the vote of panegyric in
 such a form that all men might see that it was not a panegyric, but rather a satire,
 to remind every one of his shameful and disastrous praetorship. For in truth it was
 drawn up in these words. “Because he had scourged no one.” From which you are to
 understand, that he had caused most noble and innocent men to be executed. “Because
 he had administered the affairs of the province with vigilance,” when all his vigils
 were well known to have been devoted to debauchery and adultery; moreover, there was
 this clause added, which the defendant could never venture to produce, and the
 accuser would never cease to dwell upon; “Because Verres had kept all pirates at a
 distance from the island of Sicily ;” men
 who in his time had entered even into the “island” of Syracuse .

And after I had received this information from them, I departed from the
 senate-house with my brother, in order that they might decree what they chose.
 Immediately they pass a
 decree. First, “That my brother Lucius should be connected with the city by ties of
 hospitably;” because he had shown the same goodwill to the Syracusans that I had
 always felt myself. That they not only wrote at that time, but also had engraved on
 brazen tablets and presented to us. Truly very fond of you are your Syracusans whom
 you are always talking of, who think it quite a sufficient reason for forming an
 intimate connection with your accuser, that he is going to be your accuser, and that
 he has come among them for the purpose of prosecuting inquiries against you. After
 that, a decree is passed, not with any difference of opinion, but almost
 unanimously, “That the panegyric which had been decreed to Caius Verres, be
 rescinded.”

But, when not only the vote had been come to, but when it had even been drawn up in
 due form and entered in the records, an appeal is made to the praetor. But who makes
 this appeal? Any magistrate? No. Any senator? Not even that. Any Syracusan? Far from
 it. Who, then, appeals to the praetor? The man who had been Verres's quaestor,
 Caesetius. Oh, the ridiculous business! Oh, the deserted man! O man despaired of and
 abandoned by the Sicilian magistracy! In order to prevent the Sicilians passing a
 resolution of the senate, or from obtaining their rights according to their own
 customs and their own laws, an appeal is made to the praetor, not by any friend of
 his, not by any connection, not, in short, by any Sicilian, but by his own quaestor.
 Who saw this? Who heard it? That just and wise praetor orders the senate to be
 adjourned. A great multitude flocks to me. First of all, the senators cry out that
 their rights are being taken away; that their liberty is being taken away. The
 people praise the senate and thank them. The Roman citizens do not leave me. And on
 that day I had no harder task, than with all my exertions to prevent violent hands
 being laid on the man who made that appeal.

When we had gone before the praetor's tribunal, he deliberates, forsooth,
 diligently and carefully what decision he shall give; for, before I say one word, he
 rises from his seat and departs. And so we departed from the forum when it was now
 nearly evening. The next
 day, the first thing in the morning, I beg of him to allow the Syracusans to give me
 a copy of the resolution which they had passed the day before. But he refuses, and
 says that it is a great shame for me to have made a speech in a Greek senate; and
 that, as for my having spoken in the Greek language to Greeks, that was a thing
 which could not be endured at all. I answered the man as I could, as I chose, and as
 I ought. Among other things, I recollect that I said that it was easy to be seen how
 great was the difference between him and the great Numidicus, the real and genuine
 Metellus. That that Metellus had refused to assist with his panegyric Lucius
 Lucullus, his sister's husband, with whom he was on the very best terms, but that he
 was procuring panegyrics from cities for a man totally unconnected with himself, by
 violence and compulsion.

But when I understood that it was many recent messengers, and many letters, not of
 introduction but of credit, that had had so much influence over him, at the
 suggestion of the Syracusans themselves I make a seizure of those documents in which
 the resolutions of the senate were recorded. And now behold a fresh confusion and
 strife. That, however, you may not suppose that he was without any friends or
 connections at Syracuse , that he was
 entirely desolate and forsaken, a man of the name of Theomnastus, a man ridiculously
 crazy, whom the Syracusans call Theoractus. attempted to detain those documents; a man in such a condition,
 that the boys follow him, and that every one laughs at him every time he opens his
 mouth. But his craziness, which is ridiculous to others, was then in truth very
 troublesome to me. For while he was foaming at the mouth, his eyes glaring, and he
 crying out as loud as he could that I was attacking him with violence, we came
 together before the tribunal.

Then I began to beg to be allowed to seal up and carry away the records. He spoke
 against me; he denied that there had been any regular resolution of the senate
 passed, since an appeal had been made to the praetor. He said that a copy of it
 ought not to be given to me. I read the act, that I was to be allowed all documents
 and records. He, like a crazy man as he was, urged that our laws had nothing to do
 with him. That intelligent praetor decided that he did not choose, as the resolution
 of the senate had no business ever to be ratified, to allow me to take a copy of it
 to Rome . Not to make a long story of it,
 if I had not threatened the man vigorously, if I had not read to him the provisions
 of the act passed in this case, and the penalties enacted by it, I should not have
 been allowed to have the documents. But that crazy fellow, who had declaimed against
 me most violently on behalf of Verres, when he found he did not succeed, in order I
 suppose to recover my favour, gives me a book in which all Verres's Syracusan thefts
 were set down, which I had already been informed of by, and had a list of from them.

Now, then, let the Mamertines praise you, who are the only men of all that large
 province who wish you to get off, but let them praise you on condition that Heius,
 who is the chief man of that deputation, is present; let them praise you on
 condition that they are here, ready to reply to me on those points concerning which
 they are questioned. And that they may not be taken by surprise on a sudden, this is
 what I shall ask them:—Are they bound to furnish a ship to the Roman people? They
 will admit it. Have they supplied it while Verres was praetor? They will say, No.
 Have they built an enormous transport at the public expense which they have given to
 Verres? They will not be able to deny it. Has Verres taken corn from them to send to
 the Roman people, as his predecessor did? They will say, No. What soldiers or
 sailors have they furnished during those three years? They will say they furnished
 none at all. They will not be able to deny that Messana has been the receiver of all his plunder and all his
 robberies. They will confess that an immense quantity of things were exported from
 that city; and besides that, that this large vessel given to him by the Mamertines,
 departed loaded when the praetor left Sicily .

You are welcome, then, to that panegyric of the Mamertines. As for the city of
 Syracuse , we see that that feels
 towards you as it has been treated by you; and among them that infamous Verrean
 festival, instituted by you, has been abolished. In truth, it was a most unseemly
 thing for honours such as belong to the gods to be paid to the man who had carried
 off the images of the gods. In truth, that conduct of the Syracusans would be
 deservedly reproached, If, when they had struck a most celebrated and solemn day of
 festival games out of their annals, because on that day Syracuse was said to have been taken by
 Marcellus, they should, notwithstanding, celebrate a day of festival in the name of
 Verres; though he had plundered the Syracusans of all which that day of disaster had
 left them. But observe the shamelessness and arrogance of the man, O judges, who not
 only instituted this disgraceful and ridiculous Verrean festival out of the money of
 Heraclius, but who also ordered the Marcellean festival to be abolished, in order
 that they might every year offer sacrifices to the man by whose means they had lost
 the sacred festivals which they had ever observed, and had lost their national
 deities, and that they might take away the festival days in honour of that family by
 whose means they had recovered all their other festivals.

I see, O judges, that it is not doubtful to any one of you that Caius Verres most
 openly plundered everything in Sicily ,
 whether sacred or profane, whether private or public property; and that, not only
 without the slightest scruple, but without even the very least disguise, he
 practiced every possible description of robbery and plunder. But a very heightened
 and pompous defence of him is put forward in reply to me, which I must consider very
 carefully beforehand, O judges, how I am to resist. For his cause is stated in this
 way; that by his valour, and by his singular vigilance exerted at a critical and
 perilous time, the province of Sicily was
 preserved in safety from fugitive slaves, and from the dangers of war.

What am I to do, O judges? In what way am I to shape my accusation? which way am I
 to turn? For to all my attacks the appellation of a gallant general is opposed, as a
 wall of defence. I am acquainted with the topic;—I see how Hortensius is going to
 boast himself. He will dilate upon the dangers of the war, the critical time of the
 republic, the scarcity of able generals; and that he will entreat of you, he will
 even claim as a right belonging to himself, that you do not suffer so great a
 general to be taken from the Roman people through the evidence of the Sicilians;
 that you do not allow his glory as a general to be overclouded by accusations of
 avarice.

I cannot dissemble my alarm, O judges; I am afraid that Caius Verres, on account of
 this amazing warlike valour of his, may escape with impunity from the consequences
 of all his actions. For it occurs to me, what great influence, what exceeding
 authority, the oration of Marcus Antonius was supposed to have had at the trial of
 Marcus Aquillius; who, as he was not only skillful as an orator, but bold also, when
 he had nearly finished his speech, took hold of Marcus Aquillius and placed him in
 the sight of every one, and tore his robe away from his chest, in order that the
 Roman people and the judges might see his scars, all received in front; and at the
 same time he enlarged a good deal on that wound which he had received on his head
 from the general of the enemy; and worked up the men who were to judge in the cause
 to such a pitch, that they were greatly afraid lest the man whom fortune had saved
 from the weapons of the enemy, and who had not spared himself, should appear to have
 been saved not to receive praise from the Roman people, but to endure the cruelty of
 the judges. Now again this same plan and method of defence is to be tried by the
 opposite party.

The same object is aimed at. He may be a thief, he may be a robber of temples, he
 may he the very chief man in every sort of vice and criminality; but he is a gallant
 general and a fortunate one, and he must be preserved for the critical emergencies
 of the republic. 
 
 I will not plead against you
 according to strict law; I will not urge that point, which perhaps I ought to carry
 if I did, that as this trial is appointed to take place according to a particular
 formula, the point that required to be proved by you, is not what gallant exploits
 you may have performed in war, but how you have kept your hands from other people's
 money,—I will not, I say, urge this; but I will ask, as I perceive you are desirous
 that I should, what has been your conduct and what have been your great exploits in
 war.

What will you say? That in the war of the runaway slaves Sicily was delivered by your valour? It is a great
 praise; a very honourable boast. But in what war? For we have understood that after
 that war which Marcus Aquillius finished, there has been no war of fugitive slaves
 in Sicily . Oh! but there was in Italy . I admit that; a great and formidable war. Do
 you then attempt to claim for yourself any part of the credit arising from that war?
 Do you think that you are to share any of the glory of that victory with Marcus
 Crassus or Cnaeus Pompeius? I do not suppose that even this will be too great a
 stretch for your impudence, to venture to say something of that sort. You, forsooth,
 hindered any part of the forces of these slaves from passing over from Italy into Sicily ? Where? When? From what part of Italy , as they never attempted to approach Sicily in any ships or vessels of any sort? For we
 never heard anything whatever of such an attempt; but we have heard that care was
 taken, by the courage and prudence of Marcus Crassus, that most valiant man, that
 the runaways should not make boats so as to be able to cross the strait to
 Messana ; an attempt from which it would
 not have been so important to have cut them off, if there were supposed to have been
 any forces in Sicily able to oppose their
 invasion.

But though there was war in Italy so close
 to Sicily , still it never came into
 Sicily . Where is the wonder? for when it
 existed in Sicily , at exactly the same
 distance from Italy , no part of it reached
 Italy . 
 
 

 What has the proximity of the countries to do with either side of the argument in
 discussing this topic? Will you say that access was very easy to the enemy, or that
 the contagion and temptation of imitating that war was a dangerous one? Every access
 to the island was not only difficult to, but was entirely cut off from men who had
 no ships; so that it was more easy for those men, to whom you say that Sicily was so near, to go to the shore of the ocean
 than to Cape Pelorus.

But as for the contagious nature to that servile war, why is it spoken of by you
 more than by all the rest of the officers who were governors of the other provinces?
 Is it because before that time there had been wars of runaway slaves in Sicily ? But that is the very cause why that province
 is now and has been in the least danger. For ever since Marcus Aquillius left it all
 the regulations and edicts of the praetors have been to this effect, that no slave
 should ever be seen with a weapon. What I am going to mention is an old story, and
 one, probably, owing to the severity of the example, not unknown to any one of you.
 They tell a story that Lucius Domitius was praetor in Sicily , and that an immense boar was brought to him; that he,
 marveling at the size of the beast, asked who had killed it. When he was told that
 it was such-an-one's shepherd, he ordered him to be summoned before him; that the
 shepherd came eagerly to the praetor, expecting praise and reward; that Domitius
 asked him how he had slain so huge a beast; that he answered “With a hunting spear;”
 and that he was instantly crucified by order of the praetor. This may, perhaps,
 appear harsh: I say nothing either way; all that I understand from the story is,
 that Domitius preferred to appear cruel in punishing, to seeming negligent in
 overlooking offences.

Therefore, while these were the established regulations of the province, Caius
 Norbanus, a man neither very active nor very valiant, was at perfect ease, at the
 very moment that all Italy was raging with
 the servile war. For at that time Sicily 
 easily took care of itself, so that no war could possibly arise there. In truth, as
 no two things are so closely united as the traders are with the Sicilians, by habit,
 by interest, by reason, and by community of sentiment; and as the Sicilians have all
 their affairs in such a state that it is most desirable for them to be at peace; and
 as they are so attached to the sway of the Roman people that they would be very
 sorry that its power should be diminished or altered; and as ever since the servile
 war all such dangers as these have been provided for, both by the regulations of the
 praetors, and by the discipline of the masters; there is no conceivable domestic
 evil which can arise out of the province itself.

What then do you say? Were there no disturbances of slaves in Sicily while Verres was praetor? Are no conspiracies
 said to have taken place? None at all that have ever come to the knowledge of the
 senate and people of Rome ; none which that
 man has thought worth writing public despatches to Rome about; and yet I do suspect that the body of slaves had begun to
 be less orderly in some parts of Sicily ;
 and I infer that, not so much from any overt act, as from the actions and decrees of
 Verres. And see with how little of a hostile feeling I am going to conduct this
 case. I myself will mention and bring forward the things which he wishes to have
 mentioned, and which as yet you have never heard of.

In the district of Triocala, a place which the fugitive slaves had occupied before,
 the family of a certain Sicilian called Leonidas was implicated in suspicion of a
 conspiracy. Information of the matter was laid before Verres. Immediately, as was
 natural, by his command, the men who had been named were arrested and taken to
 Lilybaeum . Their master was summoned to
 appear, and after the case had been heard they were condemned. 
 
 
 What happened afterwards? What do you suppose? Perhaps you expect
 to hear of some robbery or plunder;—do not look on all occasions for the same
 things—when a man is in fear of war, what room is there for petty thefts? However,
 even if there was any opportunity for such a thing in this matter, it was
 overlooked. Perhaps he could have got some money out of Leonidas when he summoned
 him to appear. There was besides room for bargaining, (and that was an opportunity
 that he was not new to,) to get the cause adjourned; and a second chance, to get the
 slaves acquitted. But when the slaves had been condemned, what opportunity of
 plundering could there be? They must be brought up for punishment. For there were
 the witnesses who were sitting on the bench; the public records were witnesses; that
 most splendid city of Lilybaeum was a
 witness; that most honourable and numerous assembly of Roman citizens was a witness.
 Nothing can be done; they must be brought up. Accordingly, they are brought up, and
 fastened to the stake.

Even now, O judges, you seem to me to be waiting to see what happened next; because
 that man never did anything without some gain and some booty. What could be done in
 such a case? What is profitable? Expect then to hear of some crime as infamous as
 you please; but I will outdo all your expectation. The men who had been convicted of
 wickedness and conspiracy, who had been delivered up for punishment, who had been
 bound to the stake, on a sudden, in the sight of many thousands of men, are unbound
 and restored to Leonidas their master. What can you say on this topic, O most insane
 of men? except, indeed, that which I do not ask you; what, in short, in so nefarious
 a business, although there can be no doubt about it, still, even if there were a
 doubt, ought not to be asked; namely, what or how much money you took to release
 them, and how you managed it. I give up the whole of this to you; and I release you
 from this anxiety; for I am not afraid of any one believing that you, without any
 payment, undertook an action which no man in the world except you could have been
 induced to undertake by any sum of money whatever. But about that system of thieving
 and plundering of yours I say nothing;—what I am now discussing is your renown as a
 general.

What do you say, O you admirable guardian and defender of the province? Did you
 dare to snatch from the very jaws of death and to release slaves whom you had
 decided were eager to take arms and to make war in Sicily , and whom in accordance with the opinion of your colleagues on
 the bench you had sentenced, after they had been already delivered up to punishment
 after the manner of our ancestors and had been bound to the stake, in order to
 reserve for Roman citizens the cross which you had erected for condemned slaves?
 Ruined cities, when their affairs are all desperate, are often accustomed to these
 disastrous scenes, to have those who have been condemned restored to their original
 position; those who have been bound, released; those who have been banished,
 restored; decisions which have been given, rescinded. And when such events take
 place, there is no one who is not aware that that state is hastening to its fall.
 When such things take place, there is no one who thinks that there is any hope of
 safety left.

And whenever these things do take place, their effect has been to cause popular or
 high-born men to be relieved from punishment or exile; still, not by the very men
 who have passed the sentences; still, not instantly; still, not if they have been
 convicted of those crimes which affected the lives and property of all the citizens.
 Still this is an utterly unprecedented step, and of such a character as to appear
 credible rather from consideration of who the criminal is, than from consideration
 of the case itself That a man should have released slaves; that that very man who
 had sentenced them should release them; that he should release them, in a moment,
 out of the very jaws of death, that he should release slaves convicted of a crime
 which affected the life and existence of every free man—

O splendid general, not to be compared now to Marcus Aquillius, a most valiant man,
 but to the Paulli, the Scipios, and the Marii! That a man should have had such
 foresight at a time of such alarm and danger to the province! As he saw that the
 minds of all the slaves in Sicily were in
 an unsettled state on account of the war of the runaway slaves in Italy , what was the great terror he struck into them
 to prevent any one's daring to stir? He ordered them to be arrested—who would not he
 alarmed? He ordered their masters to plead their cause—what could be so terrible to
 slaves? He pronounced “That they appeared to have done....” He seems to have
 extinguished the rising flame by the pain and death of a few. What follows next?
 Scourgings, and burnings, and all those extreme agonies which are part of the
 punishment of condemned criminals, and which strike terror into the rest, torture
 and the cross? From all these punishments they are released. Who can doubt that he
 must have overwhelmed the minds of the slaves with the most abject fear, when they
 saw a praetor so good-natured as to allow the lives of men condemned of wickedness
 and conspiracy to be redeemed from punishment, the very executioner acting as the
 go-between to negotiate the terms?

What more? Did you not act in the same manner in the case of Aristodemus of
 Apollonia , and in that of
 Leon of Megara ? What more? Did that unquiet state of the slaves, and that
 sudden suspicion of war, inspire you with any additional diligence in guarding the
 province, or with a new plan for acquiring most scandalous gain? When at your
 instigation the steward of Eumenides of Halicya, a highborn and honourable man of
 great wealth, was accused of some crime, you got sixty thousand sesterces from his master, and he lately explained to us,
 as a witness on his oath, how you managed it. From Caius Matrinius, a Roman knight,
 you took in his absence, while he was at Rome , a hundred thousand sesterces ,
 because you said that his stewards and shepherds had fallen under suspicion. Lucius
 Flavius, the agent of Caius Matrinius, who paid you that money, deposed to this
 fact; Caius Matrinius himself made the same statement, and that most illustrious
 man, Cnaeus Lentulus the censor, who quite recently has both sent letters to you
 himself, and has procured others to be sent to you for the purpose of doing honour
 to Caius Matrinius, will prove the same thing.

What more? Is it possible to pass over the case of Apollonius, the son of Diocles,
 a Panormitan, whose surname is Geminus? Can anything be mentioned which is more
 notorious in the whole of Sicily ? anything
 which is more scandalous? anything which is more fully proved? This man Verres, as
 soon as he came to Panormus , ordered
 to be summoned before him, and to be cited before his tribunal, in the presence of a
 great number of the Roman settlers in that city. Men immediately began to talk; to
 wonder how it was that Apollonius, a wealthy man, had so long remained free from his
 attacks. “He has devised some plan; he has brought some charge against him; a rich
 man is not summoned in a hurry by Verres without some object.” All are in the
 greatest state of anxiety to see what is to happen, when on a sudden Apollonius
 himself runs up, out of breath, with his young son; for his father, a very old man,
 had been for some time confined to his bed.

Verres names one of his slaves, who he said was the manager of his flocks; says
 that he has formed a conspiracy, and excited slaves in other households. He had
 actually no such slave in his family at all. He orders him to be produced instantly.
 Apollonius asserts that he has no slave whatever of that name. Verres orders the man
 to be hurried from the tribunal, and to be cast into prison. He began to cry out,
 while he was being hurried off, that the, unhappy man that he was, had done nothing;
 had committed no offence; that his money was all out at loan, that ready money he
 had none. While he kept making these declarations in a very numerous assembly of
 people, so that every one could understand that he was treated with this bitter
 injustice and violence because he had not given Verres money,—while, I say, he kept
 making these statements about his money at the top of his voice, he was thrown into
 prison.

See now the consistency of the praetor, and of that praetor who, now being on his
 trial, is not defended as a tolerable praetor, but is extolled as an admirable
 general. While a war of slaves was dreaded, he released condemned slaves from the
 same punishment which he inflicted on their masters who were not condemned. He threw
 into prison, under pretence of a servile war, without a trial, Apollonius, a most
 wealthy man, who if the runaway slaves had kindled a war in Sicily would have lost a most magnificent fortune:
 the slaves whom he himself, with the agreement of his assessors, decided had
 conspired together for the purpose of war, those, without the consent of his
 assessors, of his own accord, he released from all punishment.

What more shall I say? If anything was done by Apollonius to justify his being
 punished, shall we conduct this affair in such a manner as to impute it as a crime
 to the defendant, as to seek to excite ill-feeling against him, if he has judged a
 man rather too harshly? I will not act in so bitter a spirit. I will not adopt the
 usual method of accusers, so as to disparage anything which may have been done
 mercifully, as having been so done out of indifference; or, if anything has been
 punished with severity, so as to pervert that into a charge of cruelty—I will not
 act on that system. I will follow your decisions; I will defend your authority as
 long as you choose; when you yourself begin to rescind your own decrees, then cease
 to be angry with me, for I will contend, as I have a right to do, that he who has
 been condemned by his own decision ought to be condemned by the decisions of judges
 on their oaths.

I will not defend the cause of Apollonius, my own friend and connection, lest I
 should seem to be rescinding, our decision; I will say nothing of the economy, of
 the virtue, of the industry of the man; I will even pass over that which I have
 mentioned before, that his fortune was invested in such a manner, in slaves, in
 cattle, in country houses, in money out at loan, that there was no man to whom it
 would be more injurious for there to be any disturbance or war in Sicily ; I will not even say this, that if Apollonius
 were ever so much in fault, still an honourable man of a most honourable city ought
 not to have been so severely punished without a trial.

I will not seek to excite any odium against you, not even out of the circumstances
 that, while such a man was lying in prison, in darkness, in dirt and filth, all
 permission to visit him was refuted by your tyrannical prohibition to his aged
 father, and to his youthful son. I will even pass over this, that every time that
 you came to Panormus during that
 eighteen months, (for all that time was Apollonius kept in prison,) the senate of
 Panormus came to you as suppliants,
 with the public magistrates and priests, praying and entreating you to release some
 time or other that miserable and innocent man from that cruel treatment. I will omit
 all these statements; though, were I to choose to follow them up, I could easily
 show by your cruelty towards others, that every channel of mercy from the judges to
 yourself has been long since blocked up.

All those topics I will abandon, I will spare you them. For I know beforehand what
 Hortensius will say in your defence. He will confess that with Verres neither the
 old age of Apollonius's father, nor the youth of his son, nor the tears of both, had
 more influence than the advantage and safety of the republic. He will say that the
 affairs of the republic cannot be administered without terror and severity; he will
 ask why the fasces are borne before the praetors,
 why the axes are given to them, why prisons have been built, why so many punishments
 have been established against the wicked by the usage of our ancestors. And when he
 has said all this with becoming gravity and sternness, I will ask him why Verres all
 of a sudden ordered this same Apollonius to be released from prison, without any
 fresh circumstances having been brought to light, without any defence having been
 made, or any trial having taken place? And I will affirm that there is so much
 suspicion attached to this charge, that, without any arguments of mine, I will allow
 the judges to form their own opinion as to what a system of plundering this was, how
 infamous, how scandalous, and what an immense and boundless field it opens for
 inordinate gain.

For first of all consider for a moment how many and how grievous were the evils
 which that man inflicted on Apollonius; and then calculate them and estimate them by
 money. You will find that they were all so continued in the case of this one wealthy
 man, as by their example to cause a fear of similar suffering and danger to all
 others. In the first place, there was a sudden accusation of a capital and
 detestable crime; judge what you think this worth, and how many have bought
 themselves off from such charges. In the next place, there is an accusation without
 an accuser, a sentence without any bench of judges, a condemnation without any
 defence having been made. Estimate the money to be got by all these transactions,
 and then suppose that Apollonius alone was an actual victim to these atrocities, but
 that all the rest, as many as they were, delivered themselves from these sufferings
 by money. Lastly, there were darkness, chains, imprisonment, punishment within the
 prison, seclusion from the sight of his parents and of his children, a denial of the
 free air and common light of heaven; but these things, which a man might freely give
 his life to escape, I am unable to estimate by the standard of money.

From all these things did Apollonius after a long time ransom himself, when he was
 worn out with suffering and misery; but still he taught the rest to meet that man's
 wickedness and avarice beforehand. Unless you think that a wealthy man was selected
 for so incredible an accusation without any object of gain; or that, again, he was
 on a sudden released from prison without any corresponding reason; or that this
 method of plundering was used and tried in the case of that man alone, and that
 terror was not, by means of his example, held out to and struck into every rich man
 in Sicily .

I wish, O judges, to be prompted by him, since I am speaking of his military
 renown, if by accident I pass over anything. For I seem to myself to have spoken of
 all his exploits which are connected with his suspicion of a servile war; at all
 events I have not omitted anything intentionally. You are in possession of the man's
 wisdom, and diligence, and vigilance; and of his guardianship and defence of the
 province. The main thing is, as there are many classes of generals, for you to know
 to what class he belongs. But that, in the present dearth of brave men, you may not
 be ignorant of such a commander as he is, know,—I beg you, O judges, to be aware,
 that his is not the wisdom of Quintus Maximus, nor the promptness of action
 belonging to that great man the elder Africanus, nor the singular prudence of the
 Africanus of later times, nor the method and discipline of Paulus Aemilius, nor the
 vigour and courage of Caius Marcus; but that he is to be esteemed and taken care of
 as belonging to quite a different class of generals.

In the first place, see how easy and pleasant to himself Verres by his own
 ingenuity and wisdom made the labour of marches, which is a labour of the greatest
 importance in all military affairs, and most especially necessary in Sicily . First, in the winter season he devises for
 himself this admirable remedy against the severity of the cold and the violence of
 storms and floods; he selected the city of Syracuse , the situation of which and the nature of its soil and
 atmosphere are said to be such that there never yet was a day of such violent and
 turbulent storms, that men could not see the sun at some time or other in the day.
 Here that gallant general was quartered in the winter months, so securely that it
 was not easy to see him, I will not say out of the house, but even out of bed. So
 the shortness of the day was consumed in banquets, the length of the night in
 adulteries and debaucheries.

But when it began to be spring, the beginning of which he was not used to date from
 the west wind, or from any star, but he thought that spring was beginning when he
 had seen the rose, then he devoted himself to labour and to marches; and in these he
 proved himself so patient and active that no one ever once saw him sitting on a
 horse. 
 
 For, as was the custom of the kings of
 Bithynia , he was borne on a litter
 carried by eight men, in which was a cushion, very beautiful, of Melitan
 manufacture, stuffed with roses. And he himself had one chaplet on his head, another
 on his neck, and kept putting a network bag to his nose, made of the finest thread,
 with minute interstices, full of roses. Having performed his march in this manner,
 when he came to any town he was carried in the same litter up to his chamber.
 Thither came the magistrates of the Sicilians, thither came the Roman knights, as
 you have heard many of them state on their oaths; there disputes were secretly
 communicated to him; and from thence, a little while afterwards, decrees were openly
 brought down. Then, when for a while he had dispensed the laws for bribery, and not
 out of considerations of justice, he thought that now the rest of his time was due
 to Venus and to Bacchus.

And when speaking of this, I must not omit the admirable and singular diligence of
 this great general. For know that there is no town in all Sicily of those in which the praetors are accustomed
 to stay and hold their court, in which there was not some woman selected for him out
 of some respectable family, to gratify his lust. Some of them were even openly
 present at his banquets. If there were some a little modest, they used to come at
 the proper time, and avoided the light of day, and the crowd. And these banquets
 were celebrated, not with the orderly silence of the banquets of praetors and
 generals of the Roman people, nor with that modesty which is usually found at the
 entertainments of magistrates, but with the most excessive noise and licence of
 conversation sometimes even affairs proceeded to blows and fighting. For that strict
 and diligent praetor, who had never obeyed the laws of the Roman people, observed
 most carefully those rules which are laid down for drinking parties. And accordingly
 the ends of these banquets were such that men were often carried out from the feast
 as from a battle; others were left on the ground as dead; numbers lay prostrate
 without sense or feeling, so that any one who beheld the scene would have supposed
 that he was looking not on a banquet of a praetor, but on the battle of Cannae .

But when the middle of summer began to be felt, the time that all the praetors in
 Sicily have been accustomed to devote to
 their journeys, because they think that the best time for travelling over the
 province where the corn is on the threshing-floor, because at that time all the
 members of a household are collected together, and the number of a person's slaves
 is seen, and the work that is done is most easily observed; the abundance of the
 harvest invites travel and the season of the year is no obstacle to it; then, I say,
 when all other praetors are used to travel about, that general of a new sort pitched
 himself a permanent camp in the most beautiful spot in Syracuse .

For at the very entrance and mouth of the harbour, where first the bay begins to
 curve from the shore of the open sea towards the city, he pitched tents of fine
 linen curtains; thither he migrated from the praetorian palace which had belonged to
 king Hiero, and lived here so that during the whole summer no one ever saw him out
 of his tent. And to that tent no one had access unless he was either a boon
 companion, or a minister of his lust. Hither came all the women with whom he had any
 intrigue, and of these it is incredible how great a number there was at Syracuse . Hither came men worthy of that man's
 friendship, worthy associates in that course of life also those banquets. Among such
 men and such women as these, his son, now grown up, spent his time; in order that if
 nature removed him at all from the likeness to his father, still use and constant
 training might make him resemble him.

That Tertia whom I have spoken of before, having been tempted by trick and artifice
 to leave her Rhodian flute-player and to come hither, is reported to have caused
 great disturbance in that camp; as the wife of Cleomenes the Syracusan, a woman of
 noble birth, and the wife of Aeschrio, a woman of very respectable patronage, were
 very indignant that the daughter of Isidorus the buffoon should be admitted into
 their company. But that Hannibal, who thought that in his army there ought to be no
 rivalry of birth, but only of merit, was so much in love with this Tertia, that he
 carried her with him out of the province. 
 
 And all
 that time, while that man, clad in a purple cloak and a tunic reaching to his
 ankles, was reveling in banquets with women, men were not offended, nor in the least
 vexed that the magistrate was absent from the forum that the laws were not
 administered, that the courts of justice were not held; that all that shore
 resounded with women's vices, and music and songs. They were not, I say, at all
 vexed at there being a total silence in the forum, no pleading, and no law. For it
 was not law or the court of justice that seemed to be absent from the forum, but
 violence and cruelty, and the bitter and shameful robbery of good men.

Do you then, O Hortensius, defend this man on the ground of his having been a
 general? Do you endeavour to conceal his thefts, his rapine, his cupidity, his
 cruelty, his pride, his wickedness, his audacity, by dwelling on the greatness of
 his exploits and his renown as a commander? No doubt I have cause to fear here, that
 at the end of your defence you may have recourse to the old conduct of Antonius, and
 to his mode of ending a speech; that Verres may be brought forward, his breast
 bared, that the Roman people may see his scars, inflicted by the bites of women,
 traces of lust and profligacy.

May the gods grant that you may venture to make mention of military affairs and of
 war. For all his ancient military service shall be made known, in order that you may
 be aware, not only what he has been as a commander, but also how he behaved as a
 soldier in his campaigns. That first campaign of his shall be brought up again, in
 which he was, as he says himself, subservient to others, not their master. The camp
 of that gambler of Placentia shall be
 brought: up again, where, though he were assiduous in his attendance, he still lost
 his pay. Many of his losses in his campaigns shall be recounted, which were made up
 for and retrieved by the most infamous expedients.

But afterwards, when he had become hardened by a long course of such infamy,—when
 he had sated others, not himself,—why need I relate what sort of man he turned out?
 what carefully guarded defences of modesty and chastity he broke down by violence
 and audacity? or why should I connect the disgrace of an, one else with his
 profligacy? I will not do so, O judges. I will pass over all old stories; I will
 only mention two recent achievements of his, without fixing infamy on any one else;
 and by those you will be able to conjecture the rest. One of them is, that it was so
 notorious to every one, that during the consulship of Lucius Lucullus and Marcus
 Cotta, no one ever came up from any municipal town to Rome on any law business, who was so ill-informed of what was going
 on as not to know that all the laws of the Roman people were regulated by the will
 and pleasure of Chelidon the prostitute. The other is that, after he had left the
 city in the robe of war,—after he had pronounced the solemn vows for the success of
 his administration, and for the common welfare of the republic, he was accustomed,
 for the sake of committing adultery, to be brought back into the city, at night, in
 a litter, to a woman who, though the wife of one man, was common to all men,
 contrary to law, contrary to what was required by the auspices, contrary to
 everything which is held sacred among gods and men.

O ye immortal gods! what a difference is there between the minds and ideas of men!
 So may your good opinion and that of the Roman people approve of my intentions, and
 sanction my hopes for the rest of my life, as I have received those offices with
 which the Roman people has as yet entrusted me with the feeling that I was bound to
 a conscientious discharge of every possible duty. I was appointed quaestor with the
 feeling that that honour was not given to me so much as lent and entrusted to me. I
 obtained the quaestorship in the province of Sicily , and considered that every man's eyes were turned upon me
 alone. So that I thought that I and my quaestorship were being exhibited on some
 theatre open to the whole world; so that I denied myself all those things which seem
 to be indulgences, not merely to those irregular passions, but even those which are
 coveted by nature itself and by necessity.

Now I am aedile elect, I consider what it is that I have received from the Roman
 people; I consider that I am bound to celebrate holy games with the most solemn
 ceremonies to Ceres , to Bacchus, and to
 Libera; that I am bound to render Flora propitious to the Roman nation and people by
 the splendour of her games; that it is my office to celebrate those most ancient
 games, which were the first that were ever called Roman games, with the greatest
 dignity and with all possible religious observance, in honour of Juno,
 Jupiter , and Minerva; that the charge of
 protecting all the sacred buildings and the whole city is entrusted to me; that as a
 recompense for all that labour and anxiety these honours are granted to me,—an
 honourable precedence in delivering my opinion in the senate; a toga praetexta ; a curule chair; a right of transmitting my
 image to the recollection of my posterity.

I wish, O judges, that all the gods may be propitious to me, as I do not receive by
 any means so much pleasure from all these things, (though the honours conferred on
 me by the people are most acceptable to me,) as I feel anxiety, and as I will take
 pains, that this aedileship may not seem to have been given to some one of the
 candidates, because it could not be helped, but to have been conferred on me because
 it was proper that it should be, and to have been conferred by the deliberate
 judgment of the people.

You, when you were appointed praetor, by whatever means it was brought about,—for I
 leave out and pass over everything that was done at that time,—but when you were
 appointed, as I have said, were you not roused by the very voice of the crier, who
 made such frequent announcements that you had been invested with that honour by the
 centimes of the seniors and juniors, to think that some part of the republic had
 been entrusted to you? that for that one year you must do without the house of a
 prostitute? When it fell to you by lot to preside in the court of justice, did you
 never consider what an important affair, what a burden you had imposed on you? Did
 it never once occur to you, if by any chance you were able to awaken yourself, that
 that province, which it was difficult for a man to administer properly even if
 endowed with the greatest wisdom and the greatest integrity, had fallen to the lot
 of the greatest stupidity and worthlessness? Therefore, you were not only unwilling
 to drive Chelidon from your house during your praetorship, but you even transported
 your whole praetorship to Chelidon's house.

The province followed; in which it never occurred to you that the fasces and axes, and such absolute authority, and such
 dignity, and every sort of decoration, was not given to you in order, by the power
 and authority derived from these things, to break down all the barriers of law and
 modesty and duty, and to consider every man's property as your own booty; so that no
 man's estate could be safe, no man's house closed; no man's life protected, no
 woman's chastity fortified, against your cupidity and audacity; in which you behaved
 yourself in such a way that, being detected in everything, you take refuge in an
 imaginary war of runaway slaves; by which you now perceive, that not only no defence
 is procured for you, but that an immense body of accusations is raised up against
 you; unless, indeed, you are going to speak of the relics of the war in Italy , and the disaster of Temsa. But when your
 fortune recently conducted you to that place, at a most seasonable time, if you had
 any courage, or any energy, you were found to be the same man that you had ever
 been.

When the men of Valentia had come to you,
 and when a noble and an eloquent man, Marcus Marius, was addressing you on their
 behalf, begging you to undertake the business, and, as the power and the name of
 praetor belonged to you, to act as their chief and leader in extinguishing that
 small band that was at Temsa, you not only shunned that task, but at that very time,
 while you were on the shore, that dear Tertia of yours, whom you were carrying with
 you, was there in the sight of all men. And to the deputies from Valentia , such an illustrious and noble
 municipality, you gave no answer at all in matters of such moment, while you were
 still in your dark-coloured tunic and cloak. What can you, O judges, suppose that
 this man did while on his journey? what can you suppose he did in the province
 itself who, when he was on his way from his province, not to celebrate a triumph,
 but to be put on his trial, did not avoid a scandal which could not have been
 accompanied by any pleasure.

Oh! the noble murmur of the crowd in the temple of Bellona! You recollect, O
 judges, when it was getting towards evening, and when mention had been made a short
 time before of this disaster at Temsa, when no one was found who could be sent into
 those districts with a military command, that some one said that Verres was not far
 from Temsa. You recollect how universally every one murmured; how openly the chief
 men repudiated the suggestion. And does the man who has been convicted of so many
 accusations by so many witnesses, now place any hope in the votes of those judges,
 who have already openly condemned him, even before his cause was heard?

Be it so. He has gained no credit either from any war of the runaway slaves, or
 from the suspicion of such a war; because there has neither been any such war, nor
 danger of any such war in Sicily ; nor were
 any precautions taken by him to prevent such a war. But, at all events, against any
 war of pirates he had a fleet well equipped, and he exhibited extraordinary energy
 in that matter. And therefore, while he was praetor, the province was admirably
 defended. I will speak of the war with the pirates, and of the Sicilian fleet, when
 I have first of all solemnly stated, that with respect to this matter alone, he
 committed all his most enormous crimes,—crimes of avarice, of treason, of insanity,
 of lust and of cruelty. I beg of you to give your most diligent attention, as you
 have hitherto given it, while I briefly detail the events that took place.

In the first place, I say, that the naval affairs were managed, not with the view
 of defending the province, but of acquiring money under presence of providing a
 fleet. Though this had been the custom of former praetors, to impose a contribution
 of ships and of a fixed number of sailors and soldiers on each city, yet you imposed
 no contribution on the very important and wealthy city of the Mamertines. What money
 the Mamertines gave you secretly for that indulgence, will be seen hereafter; we
 will ascertain that from their own letters and witnesses.

But I assert, that a merchant vessel of the largest size, like a trireme, very
 beautiful, and highly ornamented, was openly built at the public expense, with the
 knowledge of all Sicily , and given and
 presented to you by the magistrates and senate of the Mamertines. This ship, laden
 with Sicilian booty, itself being also a part of that booty, put into Velia , at the same time that he himself left the
 province laden with many articles, and especially with such as he did not like to
 send to Rome along with the rest of the
 fruits of his robberies before he arrived himself, because they were the most
 valuable, and those which he was most fond of. I myself have lately seen that vessel
 at Velia , O judges, and many other men
 have seen it too; a very beautiful and highly ornamented ship, which, indeed, seemed
 to all who beheld her, to be now looking for the banishment, and to be waiting for
 the departure of her owner.

What answer will you make to me now? Unless, perhaps, you say what, although it
 cannot possibly be admitted as an excuse, yet must be urged in a trial for
 extortion, that that ship was built with your own money. Dare, at least, to say this
 which is necessary. Do not be afraid, O Hortensius, of my asking how it became
 lawful for a senator to build a ship? Those are old and dead laws, as you are
 accustomed to call them, which forbid it. There was such a republic here, once, O
 judges; there was such strictness in the tribunals, that an accuser would have
 thought such a transaction worthy to be classed among the most serious crimes. For
 what did you want of a ship? when, if you were going anywhere on account of the
 state, ships were provided for you at the public expense, both to convey you, and to
 guard you? But it is not possible for you to go anywhere on your own private
 account, nor to send for articles across the sea from those countries in which it is
 not lawful for you to have any possessions, or any dealings.

Then, why have you prepared anything contrary to the laws? This charge would have
 had weight in the ancient severity and dignity of the republic. Now, I not only do
 not accuse you on account of this offence, but I do not even reprove you with an
 ordinary reprimand. Lastly, did you never think that this would be discreditable to
 you? did you never think it would be ground for an accusation, or cause for
 unpopularity, to have a transport openly built for you, in a most frequented place
 in that province in which you had the supreme command? What did you suppose that
 they said who saw it? What did you suppose that they thought who heard of it? Did
 they think that you were going to take that vessel to Italy , empty? that you were going to let it out as a sailing boat,
 when you got to Rome ? No one would even
 believe that you had in Italy any farm on
 the coast, and that you were preparing a merchant vessel for the purpose of moving
 your crops. Did you wish every man's conversation to be such as for men to say
 openly that you were preparing that ship to carry all your plunder from Sicily , and to go to and fro for the booty which you
 had left behind?

But, however, I give up and grant the whole of this, if you say that the vessel was
 built with your money. But, O most demented of men, are you not aware that this
 ground was cut from under your feet by those very friends of yours, the Mamertines
 themselves, in the previous pleading? For Heius, the chief man of the city,—the
 chief man of that deputation which was sent to utter a panegyric on you, said that
 the ship had been built for you by the public labour of the Mamertines, and that a
 Mamertine Senator had been appointed by public authority to superintend the building
 of it. The only thing that remains is the materials. And this you yourself compelled
 the Rhegians to furnish at the public expense, as they say themselves (not that you
 can deny it), because the Mamertines have no proper materials. 
 
 
 If both the materials of which the vessel is built, and if those
 who built it, were provided by your authority, not at your expense, what, then, is
 the secret thing which you say was paid for with your money? Oh! but the Mamertines
 have no enemies respecting it in their public accounts.

In the first place, I can understand that it may be possible that they did not
 disburse any money out of the treasury. In fact, even the Capitol, as it was built
 in the time of our ancestors, was able to be built and completed by public
 authority, but without any public payment, workmen being pressed into the service,
 and a fair quota of work being exacted from each person respectively. In the next
 place, I see this also, (which I will prove when I produce my witnesses, from the
 accounts of the Mamertines themselves,) that a great deal of money was spent by that
 man which was entered as paid for imaginary contracts for works that never existed.
 For it is not at all strange that the Mamertines should in their accounts have shown
 a regard for that man's safety, from whom they had received the greatest benefits,
 and whom they had known to be much more friendly to them than he was to the Roman
 people. But if it is any argument that the Mamertines did not give you money,
 because they have not got it down in their accounts, let it be an argument also that
 the ship cost you nothing, because you have no entry to produce of having bought it,
 or having made a contract with any one to build it for you.

Oh! but you did not command the Mamertines to furnish a ship, because they are one
 of the confederate cities. Thank God, we have a man trained by the hands of the
 Fetiales; a man above all others pious
 and careful in all that belongs to public religion. Let all the men who have been
 praetors before you be given up to the Mamertines, because they have commanded them
 to furnish ships contrary to the provisions of the treaty. But still you, O you
 pious and scrupulous man, how was it that you commanded the people of Tauromenium , which is also a confederate
 city, to furnish a ship? Will you make any one believe that, while the case of both
 the states was exactly the same, the law that you administered, and the condition in
 which you left each, was so different, without money being the cause of the
 difference?

What, if I prove, O judges, that these two treaties with the two states were of
 such a nature, that in the case of the people of Tauromenium it was expressly provided for
 and guarded against in the treaty, “that they were not bound to furnish a vessel;”
 but that in the case of the Mamertines it was set down and written in the treaty
 itself, “that they were bound to furnish a vessel;” but that Verres, in opposition
 to both treaties, compelled the Tauromenians to furnish one, and excused the
 Mamertines? Can it, then, be doubtful to any one that, while Verres was praetor,
 that merchant-vessel was a greater assistance to the Mamertines than the treaty was
 to the Tauromenians? Let the treaties be read. [The treaties of the Mamertines and
 the Tauromenians with the Roman people are read.] 
 

 By that act therefore, of kindness, as you call it—of corruption and dishonesty, as
 the case itself proves,—you detracted from the majesty of the republic, you
 diminished the reinforcements of the Roman people—you diminished their resources,
 acquired by the valour and wisdom of their ancestors; you destroyed their imperial
 rights, and the terms on which the allies became such, and all recollection of the
 treaty. They who by the express words of the treaty were bound to send at their own
 expense and risk a ship properly armed and equipped with everything necessary, even
 as far as the ocean if we ordered them to do so, those men bought from you for money
 a release from the terms of the treaty, and a release from the lights of sovereignty
 which we had over them, so as to be excused from even sailing in that narrow sea
 before their own houses and homes, from defending their own walls and harbours.

How much labour, and trouble, and money, do you suppose the Mamertines at the time
 of making this treaty would willingly have devoted to the object of preventing this
 bireme from being mentioned in it, if they could by any possibility have obtained
 such a favour from our ancestors? For when this heavy burden was imposed on the
 city, there was contained somehow or other in that treaty of alliance some badge, as
 it were, of slavery. That which then, when their services were recent, before the
 matter was finally determined, when the Roman people were in no difficulties, they
 could not obtain by treaty from our ancestors; that now, when they have done us no
 new service, after so many years,—now that it has been enforced every year by our
 right of sovereignty, and has been invariably observed—now, I say, when we are in
 great want of vessels, they have obtained from Caius Verres by bribery. Oh! but this
 is all that they have gained, exemption from furnishing a ship! Have the Mamertines
 for the last three years furnished one sailor, one soldier, to serve either in fleet
 or in garrison, all the time you have been praetor?

Lastly, when according to the resolution of the senate, and also according to the
 Terentian and Cassian law, corn was to be bought in equal proportions from all the
 cities of Sicily , from that light burden
 also, which they shared too with all the other cities, you relieved the
 Mamertines.—You will say that the Mamertines do not owe corn. How do not owe corn?
 Do you mean to say they were not bound to sell us corn? For this corn was not a
 contribution to be exacted, but a supply to be purchased. By your permission, then,
 by your interpretation of the treaty, the Mamertines were not bound to assist the
 Roman people, even by supplying their markets, and furnishing them with provisions.

And what city, then, was bound to supply these things? As for those who cultivate
 the public domains, it is settled what they are bound to furnish by the Censorian
 Law. Why did you exact from them anything besides that in another class of
 contribution? What? Do those who are liable to the payment of tenths owe anything
 more than a single tenth, according to the Law of Hiero? Why have you fixed in their
 case also how much corn they were to be bound to sell to us, that being another
 description of contribution? Those who are exempt undoubtedly owe nothing. But you
 not only exacted this from them, but even by way of making them give more than they
 possibly could, you added to their burden those sixty thousand modii from which you excused the Mamertines. And this is
 not what I say, that this was not rightly exacted from the others; what I say is,
 that it was a scandalous thing to excuse the Mamertines, whose case was exactly the
 same, and from whom all previous praetors had exacted the same contribution that
 they did from the rest, and had paid them for it according to the resolution of the
 senate, and the law. And in order to drive in this indulgence with a big nail, as
 one may say, he takes cognisance of the cause of the Mamertines while sitting on the
 bench with his assessors, and pronounces judgment, that he, according to the
 decision of the bench, does not demand any corn from the Mamertines.

Listen to the decree of the mercenary praetor from his own note-book; and take
 notice how great his gravity is in framing a degree, how great his dignity is in
 pronouncing it. Read the next memorandum of his decrees. [The decree, extracted from
 Verres's note-book, is read.] He says, “that he does this willingly,” and therefore
 he makes the entry in his book. What then? suppose you had not used this word
 “ willingly ,” should we, forsooth, have supposed that you made this
 profit unwillingly? “And by the advice of the bench;” you have heard a fair list of
 the assessors read to you, O judges Did it seem to you, when you heard their names,
 that a list of assessors to a praetor was being read, or a roll of the troop and
 company of a most infamous bandit?

Here are interpreters of treaties, settlers of the terms of alliances, authorities
 as to religious obligations! Corn was never bought in Sicily by public order, without the Mamertines being ordered to
 furnish their just proportion, till that fellow appointed this select and admirable
 bench of his, in order to get money from them, and to act up to his invariable
 character. Therefore, that decree had just the weight that the authority of that man
 ought to have, who sold a decree to those men from whom it had been his duty to buy
 corn. For Lucius Metellus, the moment he arrived as his successor, required corn of
 the Mamertines, according to the regulations and appointment of Caius Sacerdos and
 Sextus Peducaeus.

Then the Mamertines perceived that they could not longer retain the privilege which
 they had bought from its unprincipled author. Come now, you, who were desirous to be
 thought such a scrupulous interpreter of treaties, tell us why you compelled the
 Tauromenians and the Netians to furnish corn; for both of those are confederate
 cities. And the Netians were not wanting to themselves, for as soon as you
 pronounced your decision that you willingly excused the Mamertines, they came before
 you, and proved to you that their case under the treaty was exactly the same. You
 could not make a different decree in a case which was identical with the other. You
 pronounce that the Netians are not bound to furnish corn, and still you exact it
 from them. Give me the papers of this same praetor referring to his decrees, and to
 the corn that was ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat that was bought. [The
 papers of the praetor referring to the decrees, to the corn ordered to be supplied,
 and to the wheat purchased, are read.] In a case of such enormous and shameful
 inconsistency, what can we suspect, O judges, rather than that which is inevitable;
 either that money was not given to him by the Netians when he demanded it, or else
 that the Mamertines were given to understand that they had disposed of all their
 bribes and presents very advantageously, when others, whose case was identical with
 theirs, could not obtain the same privileges?

Will he here again venture to make mention to me of the panegyric of the
 Mamertines? for who is there of you, O judges, who is not aware how many weapons
 that furnishes against him? In the first place, as in courts of justice it is more
 respectable for a man who cannot produce ten witnesses to speak to his character, to
 produce none at all, than not to complete the number made as it were legitimate by
 usage; so there are a great many cities in Sicily over which you were governor for three years; almost all the
 rest accuse you; a few insignificant ones, kept back by fear, say nothing; one
 speaks in your favour. What does all this show except that you are aware how
 advantageous genuine evidence to a person's character is; but that, nevertheless,
 your administration of the province was such that you are forced of necessity to do
 without that advantage?

In the next place, as I said before on another occasion, what sort of a panegyric
 is that, when the chief men of the deputation commissioned to utter it, stated, both
 that a ship had been built for you at the public expense, and also that they
 themselves had been plundered and pillaged by you in respect of their private
 property? Lastly, what else is it that these people do, when they are the only
 people in all Sicily who praise you, beyond proving to us that you gave them
 everything of which you robbed our republic? What colony is there in Italy in possession of such privileges, what
 municipality is there enjoying such immunities, as to have had for all these years
 such a profitable exemption from all burdens, as the city of the Mamertines has had
 for three years? They alone have not given what they were bound to give according to
 the treaties; they alone, as long as that man was praetor, enjoyed immunity from all
 burdens; they alone under that man's authority lived in such a condition that they
 gave nothing to the Roman people, and refused nothing to Verres.

But to return to the fleet, from which topic I have been digressing; you accepted a
 ship from the Mamertines contrary to the laws; you granted them relaxation contrary
 to the treaties; so that you behaved like a rogue twice in the case of one city, as
 you both granted indulgences which you had no right to grant, and accepted what it
 was not lawful for you to accept. You ought to have exacted a ship from them fit to
 sail against robbers, not to carry off the produce of your robberies; one which
 might have defended the province from being despoiled, not one that was to bear away
 the fresh spoils of the province. The Mamertines gave you both a city to which you
 might carry all the plunder you amassed from all quarters, and also a ship, in which
 you might take it away. That town was a receptacle for your plunder, those men were
 the witnesses to and guardians of your plunder; they supplied to you both a
 repository for your thefts, and a conveyance for them. In consequence, even when you
 had lost a fleet by your own avarice and worthlessness, you did not venture to
 require a ship of the Mamertines, at a time when our want of ships was so excessive,
 and the distress of the province so great, that, even if it had been necessary to
 beg as supplicants for a ship, they would have granted it. But all your power either
 of commanding a vessel to be furnished, or of begging for one, was crippled, not by
 the bireme supplied to the Roman people, but by that splendid merchant vessel given
 to the praetor. That was the price of your authority, of the reinforcement they were
 bound to supply, of exemption from the requirements of law, and usage, and of the
 treaty.

You have now the case of the trusty assistance of one city lost to us and sold.
 Now listen to a new system of robbery first invented by Verres. 
 
 
 Each city was always accustomed to give to its admiral the money
 necessary for the expense of the fleet, for provisions, for pay, and for all such
 things. The admiral did not dare to give the sailors any ground for accusing him,
 and was, besides, bound to render an account of the money to his fellow-citizens. In
 the whole business all the trouble and all the risk was his. This, I say, was the
 regular course not only in Sicily , but in
 every province, even in the case of the pay and expense of the Latin allies, at the
 time when we were accustomed to employ their assistance. Verres was the first man,
 ever since our dominion was established, who ordered that all that money should be
 paid to him by the cities, in order that whoever he chose to appoint might have the
 handling of that money.

Who can doubt why you were the first man to change the ancient custom of all your
 predecessors, to disregard the great advantage of having the money pass through the
 hands of others, and to undertake a work of such difficulty, so liable to
 accusation,—a task of such delicacy, inseparable from suspicion? After that, other
 sources of gain are established arising from this one article of the navy; just
 listen to their number, O judges;—he receives money from the cities to excuse them
 from furnishing sailors; the sailors that are furnished he releases for a bribe; he
 makes a profit of the whole of thee pay of those who are thus released; he does not
 pay the rest all that he ought to pay. All this you shall have proved to you by the
 evidence of the cities. Read the evidence of the cities. [The evidence of the cities
 is read.]

Did you ever hear of such a man? Did you ever hear, O judges, of such impudence? of
 such audacity? to impose on the cities the payment of a sum of money in proportion
 to the number of soldiers, and to fix a regular price, six hundred sesterces , for the discharge of each sailor! and as those
 who paid that sum were released from service for the whole summer, Verres pocketed
 all that he received both for their pay and for their maintenance. And by this means
 he made a double profit of the discharge of one person. And this most insane of men,
 at a time of frequent invasion of pirates, and of imminent danger to the province,
 did this so openly, that the pirates themselves were aware of it, and the whole
 province was a witness to it.

When, owing to this man's inordinate avarice, there was a fleet indeed in name in
 Sicily , but in reality empty ships, fit
 only to carry plunder for the praetor, not to strike terror into pirates;
 nevertheless, while Publius Caesetius and Publius Tadius were sailing about with
 these ten half-manned ships, they, I will not say took, but led away with them one
 ship, laden with the spoils of the pirates, evidently overwhelmed and sinking with
 the burden of its freight. That vessel was full of a number of most beautiful
 quilts, full of quantities of well-wrought plate, and of coined money; full of
 embroidered robes. This one vessel was not taken by our fleet, but was found at
 Megaris , a place not far from Syracuse . And when the news was brought to him,
 although he was lying in his tent on the shore, with a lot of women, drunk, still he
 roused himself, and immediately sent to the quaestor and to his own lieutenant many
 men to act as guards, in order that everything might be brought to him to see in an
 uninjured state, as soon as possible.

The vessel is brought to Syracuse .
 All expect that the pirates will be punished. He, as if it was not a case of pirates
 being taken, but of a booty being brought to him, considers all the prisoners who
 were old or ugly as enemies; those who had any beauty, or youth, or skill in
 anything, he takes away: some he distributed among his clerks, his retinue, and his
 son; six skillful musicians he sends to Rome as a present to some friend of his. All that night he spent in
 unloading the ship. No one sees the captain of the pirate vessel, who ought to have
 been executed. And to this very day every one believes, (how much truth there is in
 the belief, you also may be able to conjecture,) that Verres secretly took money of
 the pirates for the release of the captain of the pirates.

It is only a conjecture; but no one can be a good judge who is not influenced by
 such certain grounds of suspicion. You know the man, you know the custom of all
 men,—how gladly any one who has taken a chief of pirates or of the enemy, allows him
 to be seen openly by all men. But of all the body of citizens and settlers at
 Syracuse , I never saw one man, O
 judges, who said that he had seen that captain of the pirates who had been taken;
 though all men, as is the regular custom, flocked to the prison, asked for him, and
 were anxious to see him. What happened to make that man be kept so carefully out of
 sight, that no one was ever able to get a glimpse of him, even by accident? Though
 all the seafaring men at Syracuse , who
 had often heard of the name of that captain, who had often been alarmed by him,
 wished to feed their eyes on, and to gratify their minds with his torture and
 execution, yet no one was allowed even to see him.

One man, Publius Servilius, took more captains of pirates alive than all our
 commanders put together had done before. Was any one at any time denied the
 enjoyment of being allowed to see a captive pirate? On the contrary: wherever
 Servilius went he afforded every one that most delightful spectacle, of pirates
 taken prisoners and in chains. Therefore, people everywhere ran to meet him, so that
 the, assembled not only in the towns through which the pirates were led, but from
 all neighbouring towns also, for the purpose of seeing them. And why was it that
 that triumph was of all triumphs the most acceptable and the most delightful to the
 Roman people? Because nothing is sweeter than victory. But there is no more certain
 evidence of victory than to set those whom you have often been afraid of, led in
 chains to execution.

Why did you not act in this manner? Why was that pirate so concealed as if it were
 impiety to behold him? Why did you not execute him? For what object did you reserve
 him? Have you ever heard of any captain of pirates having been taken prisoner
 before, who was not executed? Tell me one original whose conduct you imitated; tell
 me one precedent. You kept the captain of the pirates alive in order, I suppose, to
 lead him in your triumph in front of your chariot. For, indeed, there was nothing
 wanting but for the naval triumph to be decreed to you on the occasion of a most
 beautiful fleet of the Roman people having been lost, and the province plundered.

Come now—you thought it better that the captain of the pirates should be kept in
 custody, according to a novel practice, than that he should be put to death
 according to universal precedent. What then is that custody? Among what people?
 Where is he kept? You have all heard of the Syracusan stone-quarries. Many of you
 are acquainted with them. It is a vast work and splendid; the work of the old kings
 and tyrants. The whole of it is cut out of rock excavated to a marvellous depth, and
 carved out by the labour of great multitudes of men. Nothing can either be made or
 imagined so closed against all escape, so hedged in on all sides, so safe for
 keeping prisoners in. Into these quarries men are commanded to be brought even from
 other cities in Sicily , if they are
 commanded by the public authorities to be kept in custody.

Because he had imprisoned there many Roman citizens who were his prisoners, and
 because he ordered the other pirates to be put there too, he was aware that if he
 committed this counterfeit captain of the pirates to the same custody, a great many
 men in those quarries would inquire for the real captain. And therefore he does not
 venture to commit the man to this best of all and safest of all places of
 confinement. In fact he is afraid of the whole of Syracuse . He sends the man away. Where to? Perhaps to Lilybaeum . I see; he was not then so entirely afraid
 of the seafaring men? By no means, O judges. To Panormus then? I understand; although indeed, since he was taken
 within the Syracusan district, he ought, at all events, to have been kept in prison
 at Syracuse , if he was not to be
 executed there.

Not at Panormus even. What then?
 where do you suppose it was? He sends him away to men the furthest removed from all
 fear or suspicion of pirates, as unconnected as possible with, all navigation or
 maritime affairs—to the Centuripans, a thoroughly inland people, complete farmers,
 who would never have been alarmed at the name of a naval pirate, but who, while you
 were praetor, had lived in dread of that chief of all land pirates, Apronius. And,
 that every one might easily see that Verres's object was, that that counterfeit
 might easily and cheerfully pretend to be what he was not, he enjoins the
 Centuripans to take case that he is supplied as comfortably and liberally as
 possible with food and with all things.

In the meantime, the Syracusans, acute and humane men, who were capable not only of
 seeing what was evident, but also of conjecturing what was hidden, kept an account
 every day of the pirates who were put to death; how many there ought to be they
 calculated from the size of the vessel itself which had been taken, and from the
 number of oars. He, because he had removed and taken away all who had any skill in
 anything, or any beauty, suspected that there would be an outcry if he had all the
 pirates fastened to the stake at once, as is the usual custom, because so many more
 had been taken away than were left: although on this account he had determined to
 bring them out in different parties, at different times, still in the whole city
 there was no one who did not keep a strict account and list of them; and they did
 not only wish to see the rest, but they openly demanded and claimed it.

As there was a great number wanting, that most infamous man began to substitute, in
 the room of those of the pirates whom he had taken into his own house, the Roman
 citizens whom he had previously thrown into prison; some of whom he accused of
 having been soldiers of Sertorius, and said that they had been driven on shore in
 Sicily , while flying from Spain ; others, who had been taken by pirates, while
 they were engaged in commerce, or else sailing with some other object, he accused of
 having been with the pirates of their own free will: and therefore some Roman
 citizens, with their heads muffled up; that they might not be recognised, were taken
 from prison to the fatal stake and to execution; others, though they were recognised
 by many Roman citizens, and though all attempted to defend them, were put to death.
 But of their most shameful death did most cruel tortures I will speak when I begin
 to discuss this topic; and I will speak with such feelings, that, if in the course
 of that complaint which I shall make of that man's cruelty, and of the most
 scandalous execution of Roman citizens, not only my strength, but even my life
 should fail me, I should think it delightful and honourable.

These then are his exploits, this is his splendid victory; a piratical galley was
 captured, the captain was released, the musicians were sent to Rome ; those with any good looks, any youth, or ally
 skill, were taken home by him; Roman citizens were tortured and executed in their
 room, and to make up their number; all the store of robes was taken away, all the
 silver and gold was taken by him and appropriated to his own use. 
 
 
 But how did he defend himself at the former pleading? He who had
 been silent for so many days, on a sudden sprang up at the evidence of Marcus
 Annius, a most illustrious man, when he said that a Roman citizen had been executed,
 and that the captain of the pirates had not. Being roused by the consciousness of
 his wickedness, and by the frenzy which was inspired by his crimes, he said that,
 because be knew that he should be accused of having taken money, and of not having
 executed the real captain of the pirates, he had on that account not executed him,
 and he said that two captains of pirates were now in confinement in his house.

See the clemency, or rather the marvellous and unexampled patience of the Roman
 people! Annius, a Roman knight, says that a Roman citizen was put to death by the
 hand of the executioner. You say nothing. He says that the captain of the pirates
 was not executed. You admit it. At that a groan and outcry arises from all the
 assembly; though nevertheless the Roman people checked themselves, and forbore to
 inflict present punishment on you, and left you in safety for the present, being
 reserved for the severity of the judges. You, who knew that you should be accused,
 how did you know it? how came you ever to suspect it? You had no enemy. Even if you
 had, still you had not lived in such a way as to have any fear of a court of justice
 before yourselves. Did conscience, as often happens, make you timid and suspicious?
 Can you, then, who, when you were in command, were even then in fear of tribunals
 and accusations, now that you are on your trial as a criminal, and that the case is
 proved against you by so many witnesses, can you, I say, doubt of your condemnation?

But if you were afraid of this accusation,—that some one might say that you had
 substituted some one else, whom you had caused to be executed for the captain of the
 pirates, did you think that it would be a stronger argument in your defence, to
 produce among strangers a long time after, (because I required and compelled you to
 do so,) a man who you said was the captain of the pirates; or to execute him, while
 the affair was still of recent date, at Syracuse , among people who knew him well, in the sight of almost all
 Sicily ? See how great a difference it
 makes which was done. In the one case there could have been no blame attached to
 you; in the other you have no defence. And accordingly, all men have always done the
 one thing; but I can find no one before you yourself, who has ever done the other.
 You detained the pirate alive. Till when? As long as you were in command. Why did
 you do so? On what account? According to what precedent? Why did you detain him so
 long? Why, I say, while the Roman citizens who were taken in the pirate's company
 were immediately put to death, did you give the pirates themselves so long a lease
 of life?

However, so be it. Let your conduct be responsible all the time that you were
 praetor. Did you still, when you became a private man, and when you became
 defendant—yes, and when you were all but condemned,—did you still, I say, detain the
 captain of our enemies in your private house? One month, a second month, almost a
 year, in fact, after they were taken, were the pirates in your house; where they
 would be still, if it had not been for me, that is to say, if it had not been for
 Marcus Acilius Glabrio, the praetor, who, at my demand, ordered them to be brought
 up and to be committed to prison. 
 
 What is the law
 in such a case? What is the general custom? What are the precedents? Can any private
 man in the whole world detain within the walls of his own house the most bitter and
 unceasing enemy of the Roman people or, I should rather say, the common enemy of
 every race and nation?

What more shall I say? What would you say, if the very day before you were
 compelled by me to confess that, though you had put Roman citizens to death, the
 pirate captain was alive and in your house—if, I say, the very day before, he had
 escaped from your house, and had been able to collect an army against the Roman
 people? Would you say, “He dwelt with me, he was in my house; in order the more
 easily to refute the accusations of my enemies, I reserved this man alive and in
 safety for my trial?” Is it so? Will you defend yourself from danger, at the risk of
 the whole community? Will you regulate the time of the punishments which are due to
 conquered enemies, by what is convenient for yourself, not by what is expedient for
 the Roman people? Shall an enemy of the Roman people be kept in private custody? But
 even those who have triumphs, and who on that account keep the generals of the enemy
 alive a longer time, in order that, while they are led in triumph, the Roman people
 may enjoy an ennobling spectacle, and a splendid fruit of victory; nevertheless,
 when they begin to turn their chariot from the forum towards the Capitol, order them
 to be taken back to prison, and the same day brings to the conquerors the end of
 their authority, and to the conquered the end of their lives.

And now, can I suppose that any one doubts that you would never have allowed
 (especially as you made sure, as you say, that a prosecution would be instituted
 against you) that pirate to escape execution, and to live to increase your danger
 which was ever before your eyes? For indeed, suppose he had died, whom could you
 (who say that you were afraid of a prosecution) have convinced of it? When it was
 notorious that the captain of the pirates had been seen by no one at Syracuse , and that all desired to see him; when
 no one had any doubt that he had been released by you for a sum of money; when it
 was a common topic of conversation that some one had been substituted in his place,
 who you wished to make believe was the man; when you yourself had confessed that you
 had, for so long a time before, been afraid of that accusation; if you had said that
 he had died, who would have believed you?

Now, when you produce this man of yours, whoever he may be, still you see that you
 are laughed at. What would you have done if he had escaped? if he had broken his
 bonds, as Nico, that most celebrated pirate did, who was afterwards retaken by
 Publius Servilius, with the same good fortune as he had originally taken him with;
 what would you have said then? But the case was this.—If once that real captain of
 the pirates was put to death, you would not get that money. If this counterfeit one
 had died or had escaped, it would not have been difficult to substitute another in
 the room of one who was himself only a substitute. I have said more than I intended
 of that pirate captain; and yet I have passed over those things which are the most
 certain proofs of this crime. For I wish the whole of this accusation to remain
 untouched for the present. There is a certain place for its discussion, a certain
 law to be mentioned in connection with it, a certain tribunal for whose judgment it
 is reserved.

Though enriched with all this booty, with these slaves, with this silver plate, and
 these robes, he was still no more diligent than before in equipping the fleet, in
 recalling and provisioning the troops; though that would not only have tended to the
 safety of the province, but might have been even profitable to himself. For in the
 height of summer, when all other praetors have been accustomed to visit all the
 province, and to travel about, or to sail about,—at a time when there was such fear
 of and such danger from the pirates; at that time he was not content, for the
 purpose of his luxury and lust, with his own kingly palace which had belonged to
 king Hiero, and which the praetors are in the habit of using. He ordered, as I have
 stated already, tents, such as he was wont to use at the summer season, erected of
 fine linen curtains, to be pitched on the seashore; on that part of the shore which
 is within the island of Syracuse ,
 behind the fountain of Arethusa; close to the entrance and mouth of the harbour, in
 a very pleasant situation, and one far enough removed from overlookers.

Here the praetor of the Roman people, the guardian and defender of the province,
 lived for sixty days of the summer in such a style that he had banquets of women
 every day, while no man was admitted except himself and his youthful son. Although,
 indeed, I might have made no exception, but might have said that there was no man
 there at all, as there were only these two. Sometimes also his freedman Timarchides
 was admitted. But the women were all wives of citizens, of noble birth, except one
 the daughter of an actor named Isidorus, whom he, out of love, had seduced away from
 a Rhodian flute player. There was a woman called Pippa, the wife of Aeschrio the
 Syracusan, concerning which woman many verses, which were made on Verres's fondness
 for her, are quoted over all Sicily .

There was a woman too, called Nice, with a very beautiful face, as it is said, the
 wife of Cleomenes the Syracusan. Cleomenes, her husband, was greatly attached to
 her, but still he had neither the power nor the courage to oppose the lust of the
 praetor; and at the same time he was bound to him by many presents and many good
 offices. But at that time Verres, though you well know how great his impudence is,
 still could not, as her husband was at Syracuse , be quite easy in his mind at keeping her with him so many
 days on the seashore. Accordingly, he contrives a very singular plan. He gives the
 command of the fleet, which his lieutenant had had, to Cleomenes. He orders
 Cleomenes, a Syracusan, to command a fleet of the Roman people. He does this, in
 order that he might not only be absent from home all the time that he was at sea,
 but that he might be so willingly, being placed in a post of great honour and
 profit; and that he himself in the meantime, the husband being sent away to a
 distance, might have her with him,—I will not say more easily than before, for who
 ever opposed his lust? but with a rather more tranquil mind, as he had got rid of
 him, not as a husband but as a rival.—Cleomenes, a Syracusan, takes the command of a
 fleet of our allies and friends.

What topic of accusation or complaint shall I urge first, O judges? That the power,
 and honour, and authority of a lieutenant, of a quaestor, yes, even of a praetor,
 was given to a Sicilian? If you were so occupied with feasts and women as to be
 prevented from taking the command yourself, where were your quaestors? where were
 your lieutenants? where was the corn valued at three denarii ? where were the mules? where were the tents? where were all the
 numerous and splendid badges of honour conferred and bestowed by the senate and
 people of Rome on their magistrates and
 lieutenants? Lastly, where were your prefects and tribunes? If there was no Roman
 citizen worthy of that employment, what had become of the cities which had always
 remained true to the alliance and friendship of the Roman people? What had become of
 the city of Segesta? of the city of Centuripa? which both by old services, by good
 faith, by antiquity of alliance, and even by relationship, are connected with the
 name of the Roman people.

O ye immortal gods! What shall we say, when Cleomenes, a Syracusan, is ordered to
 command the soldiers, and the ships, and the officers of these very cities? Has not
 Verres by such an action taken away all the honour due to worth, to justice, and to
 old services? Have we ever once waged war in Sicily , that we have not had the Centuripans for our friends, and the
 Syracusans for our enemies? And I am speaking now only by way of recollection of
 past time, not as meaning insult to that city. And therefore that most illustrious
 man and consummate general, Marcus Marcellus, by whose valour Syracuse was taken, by whose clemency it was
 preserved, forbade any Syracusan to dwell in that part of the city which is called
 the Island. To this day, I say, it is contrary to law for any Syracusan to dwell in
 that part of the city. For it is a place which even a very few men can defend. And
 therefore he would not entrust it to any but the most faithful men; and he had
 another reason too, because in that part of the city there is access to ships from
 the open sea. Therefore he did not think fit to entrust the keys of the place to
 those who had often excluded our armies.

See now how great is the difference between your lust and the authority of our
 ancestors; between your love and frenzy, and their wisdom and prudence. They took
 away from the Syracusans all access to the shore; you have given them the command of
 the sea. They would not allow a Syracusans to dwell in that part of the city which
 ships could approach; you appointed a Syracusan to command the fleet and the ships.
 You gave those men a part of our sovereignty, from whom they took a part of their
 own city; and you ordered those allies of ours to be obedient to the Syracusans, to
 whose aid it is owing that the Syracusans are obedient to us.

Cleomenes leaves the harbour in a Centuripan trireme. A Segestan vessel comes next;
 then a Tyndaritan ship; then one from Herbita, one from Heraclia, one from
 Apollonia , one from Haluntium; a
 fine fleet to look at, but helpless and useless because of the discharge of its
 fighting men, and of its rowers. That diligent praetor surveyed the fleet under his
 orders, as long as it was passing by his scene of profligate revelry. And he too,
 who for many days had not been seen, then for a short time afforded the sailors a
 sight of himself. The praetor of the Roman people stood in his slippers, clad in a
 purple cloak, and a tunic reaching down to his ankles, leaning on a prostitute on
 the shore. And since that time, many Sicilians and Roman citizens have often seen
 him in this very dress.

After the fleet had proceeded a little way, and had arrived, after five days'
 sailing, at Pachynum, the sailors, being compelled by hunger, gather the roots of
 the wild palm, of which there was a great quantity in that neighbourhood, as there
 is in most parts of Sicily , and support
 themselves in a miserable and wretched way on these. But Cleomenes, who considered
 himself another Verres, not only in luxury and worthlessness, but in power also,
 spent, like him, all his days in drinking in a tent which he had pitched on the
 seashore. 
 
 But all of a sudden, while Cleomenes
 was drunk, and all his crews famishing, news is brought that a fleet of pirates is
 in the harbour of Odyssea; for that is the name of the place. But our fleet was in
 the harbour of Pachynum. But Cleomenes, because there was a garrison of troops (in
 name, if not in reality) in that place, fancied that, with the soldiers he drew from
 thence, he might make up his proper complement of sailors and rowers. The same
 system was found to nave been put in practice by that most covetous man with respect
 to the troops, that had been adopted towards the fleet, for only a few remained, and
 the rest had been discharged.

Cleomenes, as commander-in-chief, in a Centuripan quadrireme ordered the mast to be
 erected, the sails to be set, the anchor to be weighed, and made signal for the rest
 of the ships to follow him. This Centuripan vessel was an extraordinarily fast
 sailer; for, while Verres was praetor, no one had any opportunity of knowing what
 each ship could do with oars; although in order to do honour and to show favour to
 Cleomenes, there was a much smaller deficiency of rowers and soldiers in that
 quadrireme. The quadrireme, almost flying, had already got out of sight, while the
 other ships were still hard at work in their original station.

However those who were left behind displayed a good deal of courage. Although they
 were few in numbers, still they cried out, that whatever might be the event, they
 were willing to fight; and they preferred losing by the sword the little life and
 strength that hunger had left them. And if Cleomenes had not run away so long
 before, there would have been some means of making resistance, for that ship was the
 only one with a deck, and was large enough to have been a bulwark to the rest, and
 if it had been engaged in battle with the pirates, it would have looked like a city
 among those piratical galleys; but at that time the sailors being helpless, and
 deserted by their commander and prefect of the fleet, began of necessity to hold the
 same course that he had held.

Accordingly they all sailed towards Elorum, as Cleomenes had done; but they indeed
 were not so much flying from the attack of the pirates as following their commander.
 Then as each was last in flight, he was first in danger, for the pirates came upon
 the last ships first, and so the Haluntian vessel is taken first, which was
 commanded by an Haluntian of noble birth, Philarchus by name, whom the Locrians
 afterwards ransomed at the public expense from those pirates, and from whom, on his
 oath, you at the former pleading learnt the whole of the circumstances and their
 cause. The Apollonian vessel is taken next, and Anthropinus, its captain, is slain.

While all this was going on, in the meantime Cleomenes had already arrived at
 Elorum, already he had hastened on land from the ship, and had left the quadrireme
 tossing about in the surf. The rest of the captains of ships, when the
 commander-in-chief had landed, as they had no possible means either of resisting or
 of escaping by sea, ran their ships ashore at Elorum, and followed Cleomenes. Then
 Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, being suddenly victorious, beyond all his
 hopes, not through any valour of his own, but owing to the avarice and worthlessness
 of Verres, as soon as evening came on, ordered a most beautiful fleet belonging to
 the Roman people, having been driven on shore and abandoned, to be set fire to and
 burnt.

O what a miserable and bitter time for the province of Sicily ! O what an event, calamitous and fatal to many innocent
 people! O what unexampled worthlessness and infamy of that man! On one and the same
 night, the praetor was burning with the flame of the most disgraceful love, a fleet
 of the Roman people with the fire of pirates. It was a stormy night when the news of
 this terrible disaster was brought to Syracuse—men run to the praetor's house, to
 which his women had conducted him back a little while before from his splendid
 banquet, with songs and music. Cleomenes, although it was night, still does not dare
 to show himself in public. He shuts himself up in his house, but his wife was not
 there to console her husband in his misfortunes.

But the discipline of this noble commander-in-chief was so strict in his own house,
 that though the event was so important, the news so serious, still no one could be
 admitted; no one dared either to wake him if asleep, or to address him if awake. But
 now, when the affair had become known to everybody, a vast multitude was collecting
 in every part of the city; for the arrival of the pirates was not given notice of,
 as had formerly been the custom, by a fire raised on a watchtower, or a hill, but
 both the disaster that had already been sustained, and the danger that was
 impending, were notified by the conflagration of the fleet itself. 
 
 
 When the praetor was inquired for, and when it was plain that no
 one had told him the news, a rush of people towards his house takes place with great
 impetuosity and loud cries.

Then, he himself, being roused, comes forth; he hears the whole news from
 Timarchides; he takes his military cloak. It was now nearly dawn. He comes forth
 into the middle of the crowd, bewildered with wine, and sleep, and debauchery. He is
 received by all with such a shout that it seemed to bring before his eyes a
 resemblance to the dangers of Lampsacus .
 But this present appeared greater than that,
 because, though both the mobs hated him equally, the numbers here were much greater.
 People began to talk to one another of his tent on the shore, of his flagitious
 banquets; the names of his women were called out by the crowd; men asked him openly
 where he had been, and what he had been doing for so many days together, during
 which no one had seen him. Then they demanded Cleomenes, who had been appointed
 commander-in-chief by him; and nothing was ever nearer happening than the
 transference of the precedent of Utica in
 the case of Hadrian 
 to Syracuse ; so that two graves of two
 most infamous governors would have been contained in two provinces. However, regard
 was had by the multitude to the time, regard was had to the impending danger, regard
 was had, too, to their common dignity and character, because the body of settlers of
 Roman citizens at Syracuse is such as
 to be considered the most dignified body, not only in that province, but even in
 this republic.

They all encourage one another, while he is still half asleep and stupefied; they
 take arms; they fill the whole forum and the island, which is a considerable portion
 of the whole city. The pirates having remained at Elorum that single night, left our
 ships still smoking, and began to sail to Syracuse ; for as they, forsooth, had often heard that nothing could
 be finer than the fortifications and harbour of Syracuse , they had made up their minds that if they did not see them
 while Verres was praetor, they should never see them at all.

And first of all they came to those summer quarters of the praetor, landing at that
 very part of the shore where he, having pitched his tents, had set up his camp of
 luxury while all this was going on. But when they found the place empty, and
 understood that the praetor had removed his quarters from that place, they
 immediately, without any fear, began to penetrate to the harbour itself. When I say
 into the harbour, O judges, (for I must explain myself carefully for the sake of
 those who are unacquainted with the place,) I mean that the pirates came into the
 city, and into the most central parts of the city; for that town is not closed in by
 the harbour, but the harbour itself is surrounded and closed in by the town; so that
 it is not only the innermost walls that are washed by the sea, but the harbour, if I
 may so say, flows into the very bosom of the city.

Here, while you were praetor, Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, with four small
 galleys, sailed about at his pleasure. O ye immortal gods! a piratical galley, while
 the representative of the Roman people, its name and its forces were all in
 Syracuse , came up to the very forum,
 and to all the quays of the city. Those most glorious fleets of the Carthaginians,
 when they were at the very height of their naval power, though they often made the
 attempt in many wars, were never able to advance so far. Even the naval glory of the
 Roman people, invincible as it was till your praetorship, in all the Punic and
 Sicilian wars never penetrated so far. The situation of the place is such that the
 Syracusans usually saw their enemies armed and victorious within their walls, in the
 city, and in the forum, before they saw any enemy's ship in their harbour.

Here, while you were praetor, galleys of pirates sailed about, where previously the
 only fleet that had ever entered in the history of the world, was the Athenian fleet
 of three hundred ships, which forced its way in by its weight and its numbers; and
 that fleet was in that very harbour defeated and destroyed, owing to the natural
 character of the place and harbour. Here first was the power of that splendid city
 defeated, weakened, and impaired. In this harbour, shipwreck was made of the
 nobleness and dominion and glory of Athens . 
 
 
 Did a pirate penetrate to that part of the city
 which he could not approach without leaving a great part of the city not only on his
 flanks but in his rear? He passed by the whole island, which is at Syracuse a very considerable part of the city,
 having its own distinct name, and separate walls; in which part, as I said before,
 our ancestors forbade any Syracusan to dwell, because they knew that the harbour
 would be in the power of whatever people were occupying that district of the city.

And how did he wander through it? He threw down around him the roots of the wild
 palms which he had found in our ships, in order that all men might become acquainted
 with the dishonesty of Verres, and the disaster of Sicily . O that Sicilian soldiers, children of those cultivators of
 the soil whose fathers produced such crops of corn by their labour that they were
 able to supply the Roman people and the whole of Italy ,—that they, born in the island of
 Ceres , where corn is said to have been
 first discovered, should have been driven to use such food as their ancestors, by
 the discovery of corn, had delivered all other nations from! While you were praetor
 the Sicilian soldiers were fed on the roots of wild palms, pirates on Sicilian corn.

O miserable and bitter spectacle! that the glory of the city and the name of the
 Roman people should be a laughingstock; that in the face of all that body of
 inhabitants and all that multitude of people, a pirate in a piratical galley should
 celebrate a triumph in the harbour of Syracuse over a fleet of the Roman people, while the oars of the
 pirates were actually besprinkling the eyes of that most worthless and cowardly
 praetor. After the pirates had left the harbour, not because of any alarm, but
 because they were weary of staying there, these men began to inquire the cause of so
 great a disaster. All began to say, and to argue openly, that it was by no means
 strange, that when the soldiers and the crews had been dismissed, and the rest had
 been destroyed by want and famine, while the praetor was spending all his time in
 drinking with his women, such a disgrace and calamity should have fallen upon them.

And all the reproaches which they heaped upon him, all the infamy that they
 attributed to him, was confirmed by the statements of those men who had been
 appointed by their own cities to command their ships; the rest of whom had fled to
 Syracuse after the loss of the
 fleet. Each of them stated how many men they knew had been discharged out of their
 respective ships. The matter was clear, and his avarice was proved not only by
 arguments, but also by undeniable witnesses. 
 
 The
 man is informed that nothing is done in the forum and in the assembly all that day,
 except putting questions to the naval captains how the fleet was lost. That they
 made answer, and informed every one that it was owing to the discharge of the
 rowers, the want of food of the rest, the cowardice and desertion of Cleomenes. And
 when he heard this, he began to form this design. He had long since made up his mind
 that a prosecution would be instituted against him, long before this happened, as
 you have heard him say himself at the former pleading. He saw that if those naval
 captains were produced as witnesses against him, he should not be able to stand
 against so serious an accusation. He forms at first a plan, foolish indeed, but
 still merciful.

He orders Cleomenes and the naval captains to be summoned before him. They come. He
 accuses them of having held this language about himself; he begs them to cease from
 holding it; and begs every one there to say that he had had in his ship as large a
 crew as he ought to have had, and that none had been discharged. They promise him to
 do whatever he wished. He does not delay. He immediately summons his friends. He
 then asks of all the captains separately how many sailors each had had on board his
 ship. Each of them answers as he had been enjoined to. He makes an entry of their
 answers in his journal. He seals it up, prudent man that he is, with the seals of
 his friends; in order forsooth, to use this evidence against this charge, if ever it
 should be necessary.

I imagine that senseless man must have been laughed at by his own counselors, and
 warned that these documents would do him no good; that if the charge were made,
 there would be even more suspicion owing to these extraordinary precautions of the
 praetor. He had already behaved with such folly in many cases, as even publicly to
 order whatever he pleased to be expunged out of, or entered in the records of
 different cities. All which things he now finds out are of no use to him, since he
 is convicted by documents, and witnesses, and authorities which are all undeniable.
 
 
 When he sees that their confession, and all the
 evidence which he has manufactured, and his journals, will be of no use to him, he
 then adopts the design, not of a worthless praetor, (for even that might have been
 endured,) but an inhuman and senseless tyrant. He determines, that if he wishes to
 palliate that accusation, (for he did not suppose that he could get rid of it
 altogether,) all the naval captains, the witnesses of his wickedness, must be put to
 death.

The next consideration was,—“What am I to do with Cleomenes? Can I put those men to
 death whom I placed under his command, and spare him whom I placed in command and
 authority over them? Can I punish those men who followed Cleomenes, and pardon
 Cleomenes who bade them fly with him, and follow him? Can I be severe to those men
 who had vessels not only devoid of crews, but devoid of decks, and be merciful to
 him who was the only man who had a decked ship, and whose ship, too, was not
 stripped bare like those of the others?” Cleomenes must die too. What signify his
 promises? what do the curses that he will heap on him? what do the pledges of
 friendship and mutual embraces? what does that comradeship in the service, of a
 woman on that most luxurious sea-shore signify? It was utterly impossible that
 Cleomenes could be spared. He summons Cleomenes.

He tells him that he has made up his mind to execute all the naval captains; that
 considerations of his own personal danger required such a step. “I will spare you
 alone, and I will endure the blame of all that disaster myself, and all possible
 reproaches for my inconsistency, rather than act cruelly to you on the one hand, or,
 on the other hand, leave so many and such important witnesses against me in safety
 and in life.” Cleomenes thanks him: approves of his intention; and says that that is
 what must be done. But he reminds him, of what he had forgotten, that it will not he
 possible for him to put Phalargus the Centuripan, one of the naval captains, to
 death, because he had been with him himself in the Centuripan quadrireme. What,
 then, is he to do? Shall that man, of such a city as that, a most noble youth, be
 left to be a witness? At present, says Cleomenes, for it must be so; but afterwards
 we will take care that it shall be put out of his power to injure us.

After all this was settled and determined, Verres immediately advances from his
 praetorian house, inflamed with wickedness, frenzy, and cruelty. He comes into the
 forum. He orders the naval captains to be summoned. They immediately come with all
 speed, as men who were afraid of nothing, and suspected nothing. He orders those
 unhappy and innocent men to be loaded with chains. They began to invoke the good
 faith of the praetor, and to ask why he did so? Then he says that this is the
 reason,—because they had betrayed the fleet to the pirates. There is a great outcry,
 and great astonishment on the part of the people, that there should be so much
 impudence and audacity in the man as to attribute to others the origin of a calamity
 which had happened entirely owing to his own avarice; or to bring against others a
 charge of treason, when he himself was thought to be a partner of the pirates; and
 lastly, they marveled at this charge not being originated till fifteen days after
 the fleet had been lost.

While these things were happening, inquiry was made where Cleomenes was: not that
 any one thought him, such as he was, worthy of any punishment for that disaster; for
 what could Cleomenes have done, (for it is not in my nature to accuse any one
 falsely,)—what, I say, could Cleomenes have done of any consequence, when his ships
 had been dismantled by the avarice of Verres? And they see him sitting by the side
 of the praetor, and whispering familiarly in his ear, as he was accustomed to do.
 But then it did seem a most scandalous thing to every one, that most honourable men,
 chosen by their own cities, should be put in chains and in prison, but that
 Cleomenes, on account of his partnership with him in debauchery and infamy, should
 be the praetor's most familiar friend.

However, an accuser is produced against them, a certain Naevius Turpio, who, when
 Caius Sacerdos was praetor, had been convicted of an assault; a very suitable tool
 for the audacity of Verres; a man whom he had frequently employed in matters
 connected with the tenths, in capital prosecutions, and in every sort of false
 accusation, as a scout and emissary. 
 
 The parents
 and relations of these unfortunate young men came to Syracuse , being aroused by the sudden news of
 this misfortune. They see their children loaded with chains, bearing on their necks
 and shoulders the punishment due to the avarice of Verres. They come forward, they
 defend them, they raise an outcry; they implore your good faith which at no time and
 no place had ever any existence. The father of one came forward, Dexis the
 Tyndaritan; a man of the noblest family, connected by ties of hospitality with you
 yourself, at whose house you had been, whom you had called your friend. When you saw
 him, a man of such high rank in such distress could not his tears, could not his old
 age could not the claims of hospitality and the name of friend recall you back from
 your wickedness to some degree of humanity?

But why do I speak of the claims of hospitality with reference to so inhuman a
 monster? He who entered Sthenius of Thermae, his own connection, whose house, while
 received in it in hospitality, he had plundered and stripped, in the list of
 criminals in his defence, and who, without allowing him to make any defence,
 condemned him to death; are we now to expect the claims and duties of hospitality
 from him? Are we dealing with a cruel man or with a savage and inhuman monster?
 Could not the tears of a father for the danger of his innocent son move you? As you
 had left your father at home, and kept your son with you, did neither your son who
 was present remind you of the affection of children, nor your father who was absent
 call to your recollection the indulgence of a father?

Your friend Aristeus, the son of Dexion, was in chains. Why was this? He had
 betrayed the fleet. For what bribe? He had deserted the army. What had Cleomenes
 done? He had done nothing at all. Yet you had presented him with a golden crown for
 his valour. He had discharged the sailors. But you had received from them all the
 price of their discharge. Another father, from another district, was Eubulida of
 Herlita: a man of great reputation in his city, and of high birth; who, because he
 had injured Cleomenes in defending his son, had been left nearly destitute. But what
 was there which any one could say or allege in his defence? They are not allowed to
 name Cleomenes. But the cause compels them to do so. You shall die if you do name
 him, (for he never threatened any one with trifling punishment.) But there were no
 rowers. What! are you accusing the praetor? Break his neck. If one is not allowed to
 name either the praetor, or the rival of the praetor, when the whole case turns on
 the conduct of these two men, what is to be done?

Heraclius of Segesta also pleads his cause; a man of the very noblest descent in
 his own city. Listen, O judges, as your humanity requires of you, for you will hear
 of great cruelties and injuries inflicted on the allies. Know then that the case of
 Heraclius was this:—that on account of a severe complaint in his eyes he had not
 gone to sea at all; but by his order who had the command, he had remained in his
 quarters at Syracuse . He certainly
 never betrayed the fleet; he did not run away in a fright; he did not desert the
 army; if he had, he might have been punished when the fleet was setting out from
 Syracuse . But he was in just the
 same condition as if he had been detected in some manifest crime; though no charge
 at all could be brought against him, not ever so falsely.

Among these naval captains was a citizen of Heraclia, of the name of Junius, (for
 they have some Latin names of that sort,) a man, as long as he lived, illustrious in
 his own city, and after his death celebrated over all Sicily . In that man there was courage enough, not only to attack
 Verres, for that indeed, as he saw that he was sure to die, he was aware that he
 could do without any danger; but when his death was settled, while his mother was
 sitting in his prison, night and day weeping, he wrote out the defence which his
 cause required; and now there is no one in all Sicily who is not in possession of that defence, who does not read
 it, who is not constantly reminded by that oration, of your wickedness and cruelty.
 In it he states how many sailors he received from his city; how many Verres
 discharged, and for how much he discharged each of them; how many he had left. He
 makes similar statements with respect to the other ships and when he uttered these
 statements before you, he was scourged on the eyes. But when death was staring him
 in the face, he could easily endure pain of body; he cried out, what he has left
 also in writing, “That it was an infamous thing that the tears of an unchaste woman
 on behalf of the safety of Cleomenes should have more influence with you, than those
 of his mother for his life.”

Afterwards I see that this also is stated, which, if the Roman people has formed a
 correct estimate of your characters, O judges, he, at the very hour of death, truly
 prophesied of you,—“That it was not possible for Verres to efface his own crimes by
 murdering the witnesses; that he, in the shades below, should be a still more
 serious witness against him, in the opinion of sensible judges, than if he were
 produced alive in a court of justice; for that then, if he were alive he would only
 be a witness to prove his avarice; but now, when he had been, put to death, he
 should be a witness of his wickedness, and audacity, and cruelty.” What follows is
 very fine,—“That, when your cause came to be tried, it would not be only the bands
 of witnesses, but the punishments inflicted on the innocent, and the furies that
 haunt the wicked, that would attend your trial; that he thought his own misfortune
 the lighter, because he had seen before now the edge of your axes, and the
 countenance and hand of Sextus your executioner, when in an assembly of Roman
 citizens, Roman citizens were publicly executed by your command.”

Not to dwell too long on this, Junius used most freely that liberty which you have
 given the allies, even at the moment of bitter punishment, such as was only fit for
 slaves. 
 
 He condemns them all, with the approval
 of his assessors. And yet, in so important an affair, in a cause in which so many
 men and so many citizens were concerned, he neither sent for Publius Vettius, his
 quaestor, to take his advice; nor for Publius Cervius, an admirable man, his
 lieutenant, who, because he had been lieutenant in Sicily , while he was praetor was the first man rejected by him as a
 judge; but he condemns them all in conformity with the opinion expressed by a lot of
 robbers, that is, by his own retinue.

On this all the Sicilians, our most faithful and most ancient allies, who have had
 the greatest kindnesses conferred on them by our ancestors, were greatly agitated,
 and alarmed at their own danger, and at the peril of all their fortunes. That that
 noted clemency and mildness of our dominion should have been changed into such
 cruelty and inhumanity! That so many men should be condemned at one time for no
 crime! That that infamous praetor should seek for a defence for his own robberies by
 the most shameful murder of innocent men! Nothing, O judges, appears possible to be
 added to such wickedness, insanity, and barbarity—and it is true that nothing can;
 for if it be compared with the iniquity of other men it will greatly surpass it all.

But he is his own rival; his object is always to outdo his last crime by some new
 wickedness. I had said that Phalargus the Centuripan was made an exception by
 Cleomenes, because he had sailed in his quadrireme. Still because that young man was
 alarmed, as he saw that his case was identical with that of those men who had been
 put to death, though perfectly innocent; Timarchides came to him, and tells him that
 he is in no danger at all of being put to death, but warns him to take care lest he
 should be sentenced to be scourged. To make my story short, you heard the young man
 himself say, that because of his fear of being scourged he paid money to
 Timarchides.

These are but light crimes in such a criminal as this. A naval captain of a most
 noble city ransoms himself from the danger of being scourged with a bribe—it was a
 human weakness. Another gave money to save himself from being condemned—it is a
 common thing. The Roman people does not wish Verres to be prosecuted on obsolete
 accusations; it demands new charges against him; it requires something which it has
 not heard before; it thinks that it is not a praetor of Sicily, but some most cruel
 tyrant that is being brought before the court. 
 

 The condemned men are consigned to prison. They are sentenced to execution. Even the
 wretched parents of the naval captains are punished; they are prevented from
 visiting their sons; they are prevented from supplying their down children with food
 and raiment.

These very fathers, whom you see here, lay on the threshold, and the wretched
 mothers spent their nights at the door of the prison, denied the parting embrace of
 their children, though they prayed for nothing but to be allowed to receive their
 son's dying breath. The porter of the prison, the executioner of the praetor, was
 there; the death and terror of both allies and citizens; the lictor Sextius, to whom
 every groan and every agony of every one was a certain gain—“To visit him, you must
 give so much; to be allowed to take him food into the prison, so much.” No one
 refused. “What now, what will you give me to put your son to death at one blow of my
 axe? to save him from longer torture? to spare him repeated blows? to take care that
 he shall give up the ghost without any sense of pain or torture?” Even for this
 object money was given to the lictor.

Oh great and intolerable agony! oh terrible and bitter ill-fortune! Parents were
 compelled to purchase, not the life of their children, but a swiftness of execution
 for them. And the young men themselves also negotiated with Sextius about the same
 execution, and about that one blow; and at last, children entreated their parents to
 give money to the lictor for the sake of shortening their sufferings. Many and
 terrible sufferings have been invented for parents and relations; many—still death
 is the last of all. It shall not be. Is there any further advance that cruelty can
 make? One stall be found—for, when their children have been executed and slain,
 their bodies shall be exposed to wild beasts. If this is a miserable thing for a
 parent to endure, let him pay money for leave to bury him.

You heard Onasus the Segestan, a man of noble birth, say that he had paid money to
 Timarchides for leave to bury the naval captain, Heraclius. And this (that you may
 not be able to say, “Yes, the fathers come, angry at the loss of their sons,”) is
 stated by a man of the highest consideration, a man of the noblest birth; and he
 does not state it with respect to any son of his own. And as to this, who was there
 at Syracuse at that time, who did not
 hear, and who does not know that these bargains for permission to bury were made
 with Timarchides by the living relations of those who had been put to death? Did
 they not speak openly with Timarchides? Were not all the relations of all the men
 present? Were not the funerals of living men openly bargained for? And then, when
 all those matters were settled and arranged, the men are brought out of prison and
 tied to the stake.

Who at that time was so cruel and hard-hearted, who was so inhuman, except you
 alone, as not to be moved by their youth, their high birth, and their misfortunes?
 Who was there who did not weep? who did not feel their calamity, as if he thought
 that it weep; not the fortune of others alone, but the common safety of all that was
 at stake? They are executed. You rejoice and triumph at the universal misery; you
 are delighted that the witnesses of your avarice are put out of the way: you were
 mistaken, O Verres, you were greatly mistaken, when you thought that you could wash
 out the stains of your thefts and iniquities in the blood of our innocent allies.
 You were borne on headlong in your frenzy, when you thought that you could heal the
 wounds of your avarice by applying remedies of inhumanity. In truth, although those
 who were the witnesses of your wickedness are dead, yet their relations are wanting
 neither to you nor to them; yet, out of this very body of naval captains some are
 alive, and are present here; whom, as it seems to me, fortune saved out of that
 punishment of innocent men.

For this trial Philarchus the Haluntian is present, who, because be did not flee
 with Cleomenes, was overwhelmed by the pirates, and taken prisoner; whose misfortune
 was his safety, who, if he had not been taken prisoner by the pirates, would have
 fallen into to power of this partner of pirates. He will give his evidence,
 concerning the discharge of the sailors, the want of provisions, and the flight of
 Cleomenes. Phalargus the Centuripan is present, born in a most honourable city, and
 in a most honourable rank. He tells you the same thing; he differs from the other in
 no particular.

In the name of the immortal gods, O judges, with what feelings are you sitting
 them? or with what feelings are you hearing these things? Am I out of my mind, and
 now I grieving more than I ought amid such disasters and distresses of our allies?
 or does this most bitter torture and agony of innocent man affect you also with an
 equal sense of pain? For when I say that a Herbitan, that a Heraclean was put to
 death, I see before my eyes all the indignity of that misfortune. 
 
 
 That the citizens of those states, that the population of those
 lands, by whom and by whose care and labour an immense quantity of corn is procured
 every year for the Roman people, who were brought up and educated by their parents
 in the hope of our paternal rule, and of justice, should have been reserved for the
 nefarious inhumanity of Caius Verres, and for his fatal axe!

When the thought of that unhappy Tyndaritan, and of that Segestan, comes across me,
 then I consider at the same time the rights of the cities, and their duties. Those
 cities which Publius Africanus thought fit to be adorned with the spoils of the
 enemy, those Caius Verres has stripped, not only of those ornaments, but even of
 their noblest citizens, by the most abominable wickedness. See what the people of
 Tyndaris will willingly state. “We
 were not among the seventeen tribes of Sicily . We, in all the Punic and Sicilian wars, always adhered to the
 friendship and alliance of the Roman people; all possible aid in war, all attention
 and service in peace, has been at all times rendered by us to the Roman people.”
 Much, however, did their rights avail them, under that man's authority and
 government!

Scipio once led your sailors against Carthage ; but now Cleomenes leads ships that are almost dismantled
 against pirates. “Africanus,” says he, “shared with you the spoils of the enemy, and
 the reward of glory; but now, you, having been plundered by me, having had your
 vessel taken away by the pirates, are considered in the number and class of
 enemies.” What more shall I say? what advantages did that relationship of the
 Segestans to us, not only stated in old papers, and commemorated by words, but
 adopted and proved by many good offices of theirs towards us, bring to them under
 the government of that man? Just this much, O judges, that a young man of the
 highest rank was torn from his father's bosom, an innocent son from his mother's
 embrace, and given to that man's executioner, Sextius. That city to which our
 ancestors gave most extensive and valuable lands, which they exempted from tribute;
 the city, with all the weight of its relationship to us, of its loyalty, and of its
 ancient alliance with us, could not obtain even this privilege, of being allowed to
 avert by its prayers the death and execution of one most honourable and most
 innocent citizen.

Whither shall the allies flee for refuge? Whose help shall they implore? by what
 hope shall they still be retained in the desire to live, if you abandon them? Shall
 they come to the senate and beg them to punish Verres? That is not a usual course;
 it is not in accordance with the duty of the senate. Shall they betake themselves to
 the Roman people? The people will easily find all excuse; for they will say that
 they have established a law for the sake of the allies, and that they have appointed
 you as guardians and vindicators of that law. This then is the only place to which
 they can flee; this is the harbour, this is the citadel, this is the altar of the
 allies; to which indeed they do not at present betake themselves with the same views
 as they formerly used to entertain in seeking to recover their property. They are
 not seeking to recover silver, nor gold, nor robes, nor slaves, nor ornaments which
 have been carried off from their cities and their temples;—they fear, like ignorant
 men, that the Roman people now allows such things and permits them to be done. For
 we have now for many years been suffering; and we are silent when we see that all
 the money of all the nations has come into the hands of a few men; which we seem to
 tolerate and to permit with the more equanimity, because none of these robbers
 conceals what he is doing; none of them take the least trouble to keep their
 covetousness in any obscurity.

In our most beautiful and highly decorated city what statue, or what painting is
 there, which has not been taken and brought away from conquered enemies? But the
 villas of those men are adorned and filled with numerous and most beautiful spoils
 of our most faithful allies. Where do you think is the wealth of foreign nations,
 which they are all now deprived of, when you see Athens , Pergamos , Cyzicus , Miletus , Chios , Samos , all Asia in short, and Achaia ,
 and Greece , and Sicily , now all contained in a few villas? But all
 these things, as I was saying, your allies abandon and are indifferent to now. They
 took care by their own services and loyalty not to be deprived of their property by
 the public authority of the Roman people; though they were unable to resist the
 covetousness of a few individuals, yet they could in some degree satiate it; but now
 not only as all their power of resisting taken away, but also all their means also
 of supplying such demands. Therefore they do not care about their property; they do
 not seek to recover their money, though that is nominally the subject of this
 prosecution; that they abandon and are indifferent to;—in this dress in which you
 see them they now fly to you.

Behold, behold, O judges, the miserable and squalid condition of our allies.
 Sthenius, the Thermitan, whom you see here, with this uncombed hair and mourning
 robe, though his whole house has been stripped of everything, makes no mention of
 your robberies, O Verres; he claims to recover his own safety from you, nothing
 more. For you, by your lust and wickedness, have removed him entirely from his
 country, in which he flourished as a leading man, illustrious for his many virtues
 and distinguished services. This man Dexio, whom you see now present, demands of
 you, not the public treasures of which you stripped Tyndaris , nor the wealth of which you robbed
 him as a private individual, but, wretched that he is, he demands of you his most
 virtuous, his most innocent, his only son. He does not want to carry back home a sum
 of money obtained from you as damages, but he seeks out of your calamity some
 consolation for the ashes and bones of his son. This other man here, the aged
 Eubulida, has not, at the close of life, undertaken such fatigue and so long a
 journey, to recover any of his property, but to see you condemned with the same eyes
 that beheld the bleeding neck of his own son.

If it had not been for Lucius Metellus, O judges, the mothers of those men, their
 wives and sisters, were on their way hither; and one of them, when I arrived at
 Heraclea late at night, came to meet me
 with all the matrons of that city, and with many torches; and so, styling me her
 saviour, calling you her executioner, uttering in an imploring manner the name of
 her son, she fell down, wretched as she was, at my feet, as if I were able to raise
 her son from the shades below. In the other cities also the aged mothers, and even
 the little children of those miserable men did the same thing; while the helpless
 age of each class appeared especially to stand in need of my labour and diligence,
 of your good faith and pity.

Therefore, O judges, this complaint was brought to me by Sicily most especially and beyond all other
 complaints. I have undertaken this task, induced by the tears of others, not by any
 desire of my own for glory; in order that false condemnation, and imprisonment, and
 chains, and axes, and the torture of our allies, and the execution of innocent men,
 and last of all, that the bodies of the lifeless dead, and the agony of living
 parents and relations, may not he a source of profit to our magistrates. If, by that
 man's condemnation obtained through your good faith and strict justice, O judges, I
 remove this fear from Sicily , I shall think
 enough has been done in discharge of my duty, and enough to satisfy their wishes who
 have entreated this assistance from me.

Wherefore, if by any chance you find one who attempts to defend him from this
 accusation in the matter of the fleet, let him defend him thus; let him leave out
 those common topics which have nothing to do with the business—that I am attributing
 to him blame which belongs to fortune; that I am imputing to him disaster as a
 crime; that I am accusing him of the loss of a fleet, when, in the uncertain risks
 of war which are common to both sides, many gallant men have often met with
 disasters both by land and sea. I am imputing to you nothing in which fortune was
 concerned; you have no pretext for bringing up the disasters of others; you have
 nothing to do with collecting instances of the misfortunes of many others. I say the
 ships were dismantled; I say the rowers and sailors were discharged; I say the rest
 had been living on the roots of wild palms; that a Sicilian was appointed to command
 a fleet of the Roman people; a Syracusan to command our allies and friends; I say
 that, all that time, and for many preceding days, you were spending your time in
 drunken revels on the sea-shore with your concubines; and I produce my informants
 and witnesses, who prove all these charges.

Do I seem to be insulting you in your calamity; to be cutting you off from your
 legitimate excuse of blaming fortune? Do I appear to be attacking and reproaching
 you for the ordinary chances of war? Although the men who are indeed accustomed to
 object to the results of fortune being made a charge against them, are those who
 have committed themselves to her, and have encountered her perils and vicissitudes.
 But in that disaster of yours, fortune had no share at all. For men are accustomed
 to try the fortune of war, and to encounter danger in battles, not in banquets. But
 in that disaster of yours we cannot say that Mars had any share; we may say that
 Venus had. But if it is not right that the disasters of fortune should be imputed to
 you, why did you not allow her some weight in furnishing excuses and defence for
 those innocent men?

You must also deprive yourself of the argument, that you are now accused and held
 up to odium by me, for having punished and executed men according to the custom of
 our ancestors by accusation does not turn on any one's punishment. I do not say that
 no one ought to have been put to death; I do not say that all fear is to be removed
 from military service, severity from command, or punishment from guilt. I confess
 that there are many precedents for severe and terrible punishments inflicted not
 only on our allies, but even on our citizens and soldiers. 
 
 
 
 You may therefore omit all such topics as these. I prove that the
 fault was not in the naval captains, but in you. I accuse you of having discharged
 the soldiers and rowers for a bribe. The rest of the naval captains say the came.
 The confederate city of the Netians bears public testimony to the truth of this
 charge. The cities of Herbita, of Amestras, of Enna , of Agyrium , of
 Tyndaris , and the Ionians, all give
 their public testimony to the same effect. Last of all, your own witness, your own
 commander, your own host, Cleomenes, says this,—that he had landed on the coast in
 order to collect soldiers from Pachynum, where there was a garrison of troops, in
 order to put them on board the fleet; which he certainly would not have done if the
 ships had had their complement. For the system of ships when fully equipped and
 fully manned is such that you have no room, I will not say for many more, but for
 even one single man more.

I say, moreover, that those very sailors who were left, were worn out and disabled
 by famine, and by a want of every necessary. I say, that either all were free from
 blame, or that if blame must be attributable to some one, the greatest blame must be
 due to him who had the best ship, the largest crew, and the chief command; or, that
 if all were to blame, Cleomenes ought not to have been a spectator of the death and
 torture of those men. I say, besides, that in those executions, to allow of that
 traffic in tears, of that bargaining for an effective wound and a deadly blow, of
 that bargaining for the funeral and sepulture of the victims, was impiety.

Wherefore, if you will make me any answer at all, say this,—that the fleet was
 properly equipped and fully manned; that no fighting-men were absent, that no bench
 was without its rower; that ample corn was supplied to the rowers; that the naval
 captains are liars; that all those honourable cities are liars; that all Sicily is a liar;—that you were betrayed by
 Cleomenes, when he said that he had landed on the coast to get soldiers from
 Pachynum; that it was courage, and not troops that he needed;—that Cleomenes, while
 fighting most gallantly, was abandoned and deserted by these men, and that no money
 was paid to any one for leave to bury the dead.—If you say this, you shall be
 convicted of falsehood; if you say anything else, you will not be refuting what has
 been stated by me.

Here will you dare to say also, “Among my judges that one is my intimate friend,
 that one is a friend of my father?” Is it not the case that the more acquainted or
 connected with you any one is, the more he is ashamed at the charges brought against
 you? He is your father's friend—If your father himself were your judge, what, in the
 name of the immortal gods, could you do when he said this to you? ldquo;You, being
 in a province as praetor of the Roman people, when you had to carry on a naval war,
 three years excused the Mamertines from supplying the ship, which by treaty they
 were bound to supply; by those same Mamertines a transport of the largest size was
 built for you at the public expense; you exacted money from the cities on the
 pretest of the fleet; you discharged the rowers for a bribe; when a pirate vessel
 had been taken by your quaestor, and by your lieutenant, you removed the captain of
 the pirates from every one's sight; you ventured to put to death men who were called
 Roman citizens, who were recognised as such by many; you dared to take to your own
 house pirates, and to bring the captain of the pirates into the court of justice
 from your own house.

You, in that splendid province, in the sight of our most faithful allies, and of
 most honourable Roman citizens, lay for many days together on the sea-shore in
 revelry and debauchery, and that at a time of the greatest alarm and danger to the
 province. All those days no one could find you at your own house, no one could see
 you in the forum; you entertained the mothers of families of our allies and friends
 at those banquets; among women of that sort you placed your youthful son, my
 grandson, in order that his father's life might furnish examples of iniquity to a
 time of life which is particularly unsteady and open to temptation; you, while
 praetor in your province, were seen in a tunic and purple cloak; you, to gratify
 your passion and lust, took away the command of the fleet from a lieutenant of the
 Roman people, and gave it to a Syracusan; your soldiers in the province of
 Sicily were in want of provisions and of
 corn; owing to your luxury and avarice, a fleet belonging to the Roman people was
 taken and burnt by pirates;

in your praetorship, for the first time since Syracuse was a city, did pirates sail about in that harbour, which no
 enemy had ever entered; moreover, you did not seek to cover these numerous and
 terrible disgraces of yours by any concealment on your part, nor did you seek to
 make men forget them by keeping silence respecting them, but you even without any
 cause tore the captains of the ships from the embrace of their parents, who were
 your own friends and connections, and hurried them to death and torture; nor, in
 witnessing the grief and tears of those parents, did any recollection of my name
 soften your heart; the blood of innocent men was not only a pleasure but also a
 profit to you.” 
 
 If your own father were to say
 this to you, could you entreat pardon from him? could you dare to beg even him to
 forgive you?

Enough has been done by me, O judges, to satisfy the Sicilians, enough to discharge
 my duty and obligation to them, enough to acquit me of my promise and of the labour
 which I have undertaken. The remainder of the accusation, O judges, is one which I
 have not received from any one, but which is, if I may so say, innate in me; it is
 one which has not been brought to me, but which is deeply fixed and implanted in all
 my feelings; it is one which concerns not the safety of the allies, but the life and
 existence of Roman citizens, that is to say, of every one of us. And in urging this,
 do not, O judges, expect to hear any arguments from me, as if the matter were
 doubtful. Everything which I am going to say about the punishment of Roman citizens,
 will be so evident and notorious, that I could produce all Sicily as witnesses to prove it. For some insanity,
 the frequent companion of wickedness and audacity, urged on that man's unrestrained
 ferocity of disposition and inhuman nature to such frenzy, that he never hesitated,
 openly, in the presence of the whole body of citizens and settlers, to employ
 against Roman citizens those punishments which have been instituted only for slaves
 convicted of crime.

Why need I tell you how many men he has scourged? I will only say that, most
 briefly, O judges, while that man was praetor there was no discrimination whatever
 in the infliction of that sort of punishment; and, accordingly, the hands of the
 lictor were habitually laid on the persons of the Roman citizens, even without any
 actual order from Verres. 
 
 Can you deny this, O
 Verres, that in the forum, at Lilybaeum , in
 the presence of a numerous body of inhabitants, Caius Servilius, a Roman citizen, an
 old trader of the body of settlers at Panormus , was beaten to the ground by rods and scourges before your
 tribunal, before your very feet? Dare first to deny this, if you can. No one was at
 Lilybaeum who did not see it. No one was
 in Sicily who did not hear of it. I assert
 that a Roman citizen fell down before your eyes, exhausted by the scourging of your
 lictors.

For what reason? O ye immortal gods!—though in asking that I am doing injury to the
 common cause of all the citizens, and to the privilege of citizenship, for I am
 asking what reason there was in the case of Servilius for this treatment, as if
 there could be any reason for its being legally inflicted on any Roman citizen.
 Pardon me this one error, O judges, for I will not in the rest of the cases ask for
 any reason. He had spoken rather freely of the dishonesty and worthlessness of
 Verres. And as soon as he was informed of this, he orders the man to Lilybaeum to give security in a prosecution
 instituted against him by one of the slaves of Verres. He gives security. He comes
 to Lilybaeum . Verres begins to compel him,
 though no one proceeded with any action against him, though no one made any claim on
 him, to be bound over in the sum of two thousand sesterces , to appear to a charge brought against him by his own lictor,
 in the formula,—“If he had made any profit by robbery.”—He says that he will appoint
 judges out of his own retinue. Servilius demurs, and entreats that he may not be
 proceeded against by a capital prosecution before unjust judges, and where there is
 no prosecutor.

While he is urging this with a loud voice, six of the most vigorous lictors
 surround him, men in full practice in beating and scourging men; they beat him most
 furiously with rods; then the lictor who was nearest to him, the man whom I have
 already often mentioned, Sextus, turning his stick round, began to beat the wretched
 man violently on the eyes. Therefore, when blood had filled his mouth and eyes, he
 fell down, and they, nevertheless, continued to beat him on the sides while lying on
 the ground, till he said at last he would give security. He, having been treated in
 this manner, was taken away from the place as dead, and, in a short time afterwards,
 he died. But that devoted servant of Venus, that man so rich in wit and politeness,
 erected a silver Cupid out of his property in the temple of Venus. And in this way
 he misused the fortunes of men to fulfil the nightly vows made by him for the
 accomplishment of his desires.

For why should I speak separately of all the other punishments inflicted on Roman
 citizens, rather than generally, and in the lump? That prison which was built at
 Syracuse , by that most cruel tyrant
 Dionysius, which is called the stone-quarries, was, under his government, the home
 of Roman citizens. As any one of them offended his eyes or his mind, he was
 instantly thrown into the stone-quarries. I see that this appears a scandalous thing
 to you, O judges; and I had observed that, at the former pleading, when the
 witnesses stated these things; for you thought that the privileges of freedom ought
 to be maintained, not only here, where there are tribunes of the people, where there
 are other magistrates, where there is a forum with many courts of justice, where
 there is the authority of the senate, where there is the opinion of the Roman people
 to hold a man in check, where the Roman people itself is present in great numbers;
 but, in whatever country or nation the privileges of Roman citizens are violated,
 you, O judges, decide that that violation concerns the common cause of freedom, and
 of your dignity.

Did you, O Verres, dare to confine such a number of Roman citizens in a prison
 built for foreigners, for wicked men, for pirates, and for enemies? Did no thoughts
 of this tribunal, or of the public assembly, or of this numerous multitude which I
 see around me, and which is now regarding you with a most hostile and inimical
 disposition, occur to your mind? Did not the dignity of the Roman people, though
 absent, did not the appearance of such a concourse as this ever present itself to
 your eyes or to your thoughts? Did you never think that you should have to return
 home to the sight of these men, that you should have to come into the forum of the
 Roman people, that you should have to submit yourself to the power of the laws and
 courts of justice?

But what, O Verres, was that passion of yours for practicing cruelty? what was your
 reason for undertaking so many wicked actions? It was nothing, O judges, except a
 new and unprecedented system of plundering. For like those men whose histories we
 have learnt from the poets, who are said to have occupied some bays on the
 sea-coast, or some promontories, or some precipitous rocks, in order to be able to
 murder those who had been driven to such places in their vessels, this man also
 looked down as an enemy over every sea, from every part of Sicily . Every ship that came from Asia , from Syria , from Tyre , from
 Alexandria , was immediately seized
 by informers and guards that he could rely upon; their crews were all thrown into
 the stone-quarries; their freights and merchandise carried up into the praetor's
 house. After a long interval there was seen to range through Sicily , not another Dionysius, not another Phalaris,
 (for their island has at one time or another produced many inhuman tyrants,) but a
 new sort of monster, endowed with all the ancient savage barbarity which is said to
 have formerly existed in those same districts;

for I do not think that either Scylla or Charybdis was such an enemy to sailors, as
 that man has been in the same waters. And in one respect he is far more to be
 dreaded than they, because he is girdled with more numerous and more powerful hounds
 than they were. He is a second Cyclops , far
 more savage than the first; for Verres had possession of the whole island;
 Polyphemus is said to have occupied only Aetna and that part of Sicily . But what pretext was alleged at the time by that man for this
 outrageous cruelty? The same which is now going to be stated in his defence. He used
 to say whenever any one came to Sicily a
 little better off than usual, that they were soldiers of Sertorius, and that they
 were flying from Dianium . They brought him presents to gain his protection from danger;
 some brought him Tyrian purple, others brought frankincense, perfumes, and linen
 robes; others gave jewels and pearls; some offered great bribes and Asiatic slaves,
 so that it was seen by their very goods from what place they came. They were not
 aware that those very things which they thought that they were employing as aids to
 ensure their safety, were the causes of their danger. For he would say that they had
 acquired those things by partnership with pirates, he would order the men themselves
 to be led away to the stone-quarries, he would see that their ships and their
 freights were diligently taken care of.

When by these practices his prison had become full of merchants, then those scenes
 took place which you have heard related by Lucius Suetius, a Roman knight, and a
 most virtuous man, and by others. The necks of Roman citizens were broken in a most
 infamous manner in the prison; so that very expression and form of entreaty, “I am a
 Roman citizen,” which has often brought to many, in the most distant countries,
 succour and assistance, even among the barbarians, only brought to these men a more
 bitter death and a more immediate execution. What is this, O Verres? What reply are
 you thinking of making to this? That I am telling lies? that I am inventing things?
 that I am exaggerating this accusation? Will you dare to say any one of these things
 to those men who are defending you? Give me, I pray you, the documents of the
 Syracusans taken from his own bosom, which, methinks, were drawn up according to his
 will; give me the register of the prison, which is most carefully made up, stating
 in what day each individual was committed to prison, when he died, how he was
 executed. [The documents of the Syracusans are read.]

You see that Roman citizens were thrown in crowds into the stone quarries; you see
 a multitude of your fellow-citizens heaped together in a most unworthy place. Look
 now for all the traces of their departure from that place, which are to be seen.
 There are none. Are they all dead of disease? If he were able to urge this in his
 defence, still such a defence would find credit with no one. But there is a word
 written in those documents, which that ignorant and profligate man never noticed,
 and would not have understood if he had. *)ekdikaiw/qhsan , it says that is, according to the Sicilian language,
 they were punished and put to death.

If any king, if any city among foreign nations, in any nation had done anything of
 this sort to a Roman citizen, should we not avenge that act by a public resolution?
 should we not prosecute our revenge by war? Could we leave such injury and insult
 offered the Roman name unavenged and unpunished? How many wars, and what serious
 ones do you think that our ancestors undertook, because Roman citizens were said to
 have been ill-treated, or Roman vessels detained, or Roman merchants plundered? But
 I am not complaining that men have been detained; I think one might endure their
 having been plundered; I am impeaching Verres because after their ships, their
 slaves, and their merchandise had been taken from them, the merchants themselves
 were thrown into prison—because Roman citizens were imprisoned and executed.

If I were saying this among Scythians, not before such a multitude of Roman
 citizens, not before the most select senators of the city, not in the forum of the
 Roman people,—if I were relating such numerous and bitter punishments inflicted on
 Roman citizens, I should move the pity of even those barbarous men. For so great is
 the dignity of this empire, so great is the honour in which the Roman name is held
 among all nations, that the exercise of such cruelty towards our citizens seems to
 be permitted to no one. Can I think that there is any safety or any refuge for you,
 when I see you hemmed in by the severity of the judges, and entangled as it were in
 the meshes of a net by the concourse of the Roman people here present?

If, indeed, (though I have no idea that that is possible,) you were to escape from
 these toils, and effect your escape by any way or any method, you will then fall
 into that still greater net, in which you must be caught and destroyed by me from
 the elevation in which I stand. For even if I were to grant to him all that he urges
 in his defence, yet that very defence must turn out not less injurious to him than
 my true accusation. For what does he urge in his defence? He says that he arrested
 men flying from Spain , and put them to
 death. Who gave you leave to do so? By what right did you do so? Who else did the
 same thing? How was it lawful for you to do so?

We see the forum and the porticoes full of those men, and we are contented to see
 them there. For the end of civil dissensions, and of the (shall I say) insanity, or
 destiny, or calamity in which they take their rise, is not so grievous as to make it
 unlawful for us to preserve the rest of our citizens in safety. That Verres there,
 that ancient betrayer of his consul, that transferrer of the quaestorship, that embezzler of the public
 money, has taken upon himself so much authority in the republic, that he would have
 inflicted a bitter and cruel death on all those men whom the senate, and the Roman
 people, and the magistrates allowed to remain in the forum, in the exercise of their
 rights as voters' in the city and in the republic, if fortune had brought them to
 any part of Sicily .

After Perperna was slain, many of the number of Sertorius's soldiers fled to Cnaeus
 Pompeius, that most illustrious and gallant man. Was there one of them whom he did
 not preserve safe and unhurt with the greatest kindness? was there one suppliant
 citizen to whom that invincible right hand was not stretched out as a pledge of his
 faith, and as a sure token of safety? Was it then so? Was death and torture
 appointed by you, who had never done one important service to the republic, for
 those who found a harbour of refuge in that man against whom they had borne arms?
 See what an admirable defence you have imagined for yourself. 
 
 
 I had rather, I had rather in truth, that the truth of this
 defence of yours were proved to these judges and to the Roman people, than the truth
 of my accusation. I had rather, I say, that you were thought a foe and an enemy to
 that class of men than to merchants and seafaring men. For the accusation I bring
 against you impeaches you of excessive avarice: the defence that you make for
 yourself accuses you of a sort of frenzy, of savage ferocity, of unheard-of cruelty,
 and of almost a new proscription.

But I may not avail myself of such an advantage as that, O judges; I may not; for
 all Puteoli is here; merchants in
 crowds have come to this trial, wealthy and honourable men, who will tell you, some
 that their partners, some that their freedmen were plundered by that man, were
 thrown into prison, that some were privately murdered in prison, some publicly
 executed. See now how impartially I will behave to you. When I produce Publius
 Granius as a witness to state that his freedmen were publicly executed by you, to
 demand back his ship and his merchandise from you, refute him if you can; I will
 abandon my own witness and will take your part; I will assist you, I say, prove that
 those men have been with Sertorius, and that, when flying from Dianium , they were driven to Sicily . There is nothing which I would rather have
 you prove. For no crime can be imagined or produced against you which is worthy of a
 greater punishment.

I will call back the Roman knight, Lucius Flavius, if you wish; since at the
 previous pleading, being influenced, as your advocates are in the habit of saying,
 by some unusual prudence, but, (as all men are aware,) being overpowered by your own
 conscience, and by the authority of my witnesses, you did not put a question to any
 single witness. Let Flavius be asked, if you like, who Lucius Herennius was, the man
 who, he says, was a money-changer at Leptis ; who, though he had more than a hundred Roman citizens in the
 body of settlers at Syracuse , who not
 only knew him, but defended him with their tears and with entreaties to you, was
 still publicly executed by you in the sight of all the Syracusans. I am very willing
 that this witness of mine should also be refuted, and that it should be demonstrated
 end proved by you that that Herennius had been one of Sertorius's soldiers.

What shall we say of that multitude of those men who were produced with veiled
 heads among the pirates and prisoners in order to be executed? What was that new
 diligence of yours, and on what account was it put in operation? Did the loud
 outcries of Lucius Flavius and the rest about Lucius Herennius influence you? Had
 the excessive influence of Marcus Annius, a most influential and most honourable
 man, made you a little more careful and more fearful? who lately stated in his
 evidence that it was not some stranger, no one knows who, nor any foreigner, but a
 Roman citizen who was well known to the whole body of inhabitants, who had been born
 at Syracuse , who had been publicly
 executed by you.

After this loud statement of theirs,—after this had become known by the common
 conversation and common complaints of all men, he began to be, I will not say more
 merciful in his punishments, but mere careful. He established the rule of bringing
 out Roman citizens for punishment with their heads muffled up, whom, however, he put
 to death in the sight of all men, because the citizens (as we have said before) were
 calculating the number of pirates with too much accuracy. Was this the condition
 that was established for the Roman people while you were praetor? were these the
 hopes under which they were to transact their business? was this the danger in which
 their lives and condition as freemen were placed? are there not risks enough at the
 hands of fortune to be encountered of necessity by merchants, unless they are
 threatened also with these terrors by our magistrates, and in our provinces? Was
 this the state to which it was decent to reduce that suburban and loyal province of
 Sicily , full of most valued allies, and
 of most honourable Roman citizens, which has at all times received with the greatest
 willingness all Roman citizens within its territories, that those who were sailing
 from the most distant parts of Syria or
 Egypt, who had been held in some honour, even among barbarians, on account of their
 name as Roman citizens, who had escaped from the ambushes of pirates, from the
 dangers of tempests, should be publicly executed in Sicily when they thought that they had now reached their home?

For why should I speak of Publius Gavius, a citizen of the municipality of
 Cosa , O judges? or with what vigour of
 language, with what gravity of expression, with what grief of mind shall I mention
 him? But, indeed, that indignation fails me. I must take more care than usual that
 what I am going to say be worthy of my subject,—worthy of the indignation which I
 feel. For the charge is of such a nature, that when I was first informed of it I
 thought I should not avail myself of it. For although I knew that it was entirely
 true, still I thought that it would not appear credible. Being compelled by the
 tears of all the Roman citizens who are living as traders in Sicily , being influenced by the testimonies of the
 men of Valentia , most honourable men, and
 by those of all the Rhegians, and of many Roman knights who happened at that time to
 be at Messana , I produced at the previous
 pleading only just that amount of evidence which might prevent the matter from
 appearing doubtful to any one.

What shall I do now? When I have been speaking for so many hours of one class of
 offences, and of that man's nefarious cruelty,—when I have now expended nearly all
 my treasures of words of such a sort as are worthy of that man's wickedness on other
 matters, and have omitted to take precautions to keep your attention on the stretch
 by diversifying my accusations, how am I to deal with an affair of the importance
 that this is? There is, I think, but one method, but one line open to me. I will
 place the matter plainly before you, which is of itself of such importance that
 there is no need of my eloquence and eloquence, indeed, I have none, but there is no
 need of any one's eloquence to excite your feelings.

This Gavius whom I am speaking of, a citizens of Cosa , when he (among that vast number of Roman citizens who had been
 treated in the same way) had been thrown by Verres into prison, and somehow or other
 had escaped secretly out of the stone-quarries, and had come to Messana , being now almost within sight of Italy and of the walls of Rhegium , and being revived, after that fear of death
 and that darkness, by the light, as it were, of liberty and of the fragrance of the
 laws, began to talk at Messana , and to
 complain that he, a Roman citizen, had been thrown into prison. He said that he was
 now going straight to Rome , and that he
 would meet Verres on his arrival there. 
 
 The
 miserable man was not aware that it made no difference e whether he said this at
 Messana , or before the man's face in his
 own praetorian palace. For, as I have shown you before, that man had selected this
 city as the assistant in his crimes, the receiver of his thefts, the partner in all
 his wickedness. Accordingly, Gavius is at once brought before the Mamertine
 magistrates; and, as it happened, Verres came on that very day to Messana . The matter is brought before him. He is
 told that the man was a Roman citizen, who was complaining that at Syracuse he had been confined in the
 stone-quarries, and who, when he was actually embarking on board ship, and uttering
 violent threats against Verres, had been brought back by them, and reserved in order
 that he himself might decide what should be done with him.

He thanks the men and praises their good-will and diligence in his behalf. He
 himself, inflamed with wickedness and frenzy, comes into the forum. His eyes glared;
 cruelty was visible in his whole countenance. All men waited to see what does he was
 going to take,—what he was going to do; when all of a sudden he orders the man to be
 seized, and to be stripped and bound in the middle of the forum, and the rods to be
 got ready. The miserable man cried out that he was a Roman citizen, a citizen, also,
 of the municipal town of Cosa ,—that he had
 served with Lucius Pretius a most illustrious Roman knight, who was living as a
 trader at Panormus , and from whom
 Verres might know that he was speaking the truth. Then Verres says that he has
 ascertained that he had been sent into Sicily by the leaders of the runaway slaves, in order to act as a
 spy; a matter as to which there was no witness, no trace, nor even the slightest
 suspicion in the mind of any one.

Then he orders the man to be most violently scourged on all sides. In the middle of
 the forum of Messana a Roman citizen, O
 judges, was beaten with rods; while in the mean time no groan was heard, no other
 expression was heard from that wretched man, amid all his pain, and between the
 sound of the blows, except these words, “I am a citizen of Rome .” He fancied that by this one statement of his
 citizenship he could ward off all blows, and remove all torture from his person. He
 not only did not succeed in averting by his entreaties the violence of the rods, but
 as he kept on repeating his entreaties and the assertion of his citizenship, a
 cross—a cross I say—was got ready for that miserable man, who had never witnessed
 such a stretch of power.

O the sweet name of liberty! O the admirable privileges of our citizenship! O
 Porcian law! O Sempronian laws! O power of the tribunes, bitterly regretted by, and
 at last restored to the Roman people! Have all our rights fallen so far, that in a
 province of the Roman people,—in a town of our confederate allies,—a Roman citizen
 should be bound in the forum, and beaten with rods by a man who only had the fasces
 and the axes through the kindness of the Roman people? What shall I say? When fire,
 and red-hot plates and other instruments of torture were employed? It the bitter
 entreaties and the miserable cries of that man had no power to restrain you, were
 you not moved even by the weeping and loud groans of the Roman citizens who were
 present at that time? Did you dare to drag any one to the cross who said that he was
 a Roman citizen? I was unwilling, O judges, to press this point so strongly at the
 former pleading; I was unwilling to do so. For you saw how the feelings of the
 multitude were excited against him with indignation, and hatred, and fear of their
 common danger. I, at that time, fixed a limit to my oration, and checked the
 eagerness of Caius Numitorius a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, one of
 my witnesses. And I rejoiced that Glabrio had acted (and he had acted most wisely)
 as he did in dismissing that witness immediately, in the middle of the discussion.
 In fact he was afraid that the Roman people might seem to have inflicted that
 punishment on Verres by tumultuary violence, which he was anxious he should only
 suffer according to the laws and by your judicial sentence.

Now since it is made clear beyond a doubt to every one, in what state your case is,
 and what will become of you, I will deal thus with you: I will prove that that
 Gavius whom you all of a sudden assert to have been a spy, had been confined by you
 in the stone-quarries at Syracuse ; and
 I will prove that, not only by the registers of the Syracusans,—lest you should be
 able to say that, because there is a man named Gavius mentioned in those documents,
 I have invented this charge, and picked out this name so as to be able to say that
 this is the man,—but in accordance with your own choice I will produce witnesses,
 who will state that that identical man was thrown by you into the stone-quarries at
 Syracuse . I will produce, also,
 citizens of Cosa , his fellow citizens and
 relations,, who shall teach you, though it is too late, and who shall also teach the
 judges, (for it is not too late for them to know them,) that that Publius Gavius
 whom you crucified was a Roman citizen, and a citizen of the municipality of
 Cosa , not a spy of runaway slaves.

When I have made all these points, which I undertake to prove, abundantly plain to
 your most intimate friends, then I will also turn my attention to that which is
 granted me by you. I will say that I am content with that. For what—what, I say—did
 you yourself lately say, when in an agitated state you escaped from the outcry and
 violence of the Roman people? Why, that he had only cried out that he was a Roman
 citizen because he was seeking some respite, but that he was a spy. My witnesses are
 unimpeachable. For what else does Caius Numitorius say? what else do Marcus and
 Publius Cottius say, most noble men of the district of Tauromenium ? what else does Marcus Lucceius
 say, who had a great business as a money-changer at Rhegium ? what else do all the others ray? For as yet witnesses have
 only been produced by me of this class, not men who say that they were acquainted
 with Gavius, but men who say that they saw him at the time that he was being dragged
 to the cross, while crying out that he was a Roman citizen. And you, O Verres, say
 the same thing. You confess that he did cry out that he was a Roman citizen; but
 that the name of citizenship did not avail with you even as much as to cause the
 least hesitation in your mind, or even any brief respite from a most cruel and
 ignominious punishment.

This is the point I press, this is what I dwell upon, O judges; with this single
 fact I am content. I give up, I am indifferent to all the rest. By his own
 confession he must be entangled and destroyed. You did not know who he was; you
 suspected that he was a spy. I do not ask you what were your grounds for that
 suspicion, I impeach you by your own words. He said that he was a Roman citizen. If
 you, O Verres, being taken among the Persians or in the remotest parts of India , were being led to execution, what else would
 you cry out but that you were a Roman citizen? And if that name of your city,
 honoured and renowned as it is among all men, would have availed you, a stranger
 among strangers, among barbarians, among men placed in the most remote and distant
 corners of the earth, ought not he, whoever he was, whom you were hurrying to the
 cross, who was a stranger to you, to have been able, when he said that he was a
 Roman citizen, to obtain from you, the praetor, if not an escape, at least a respite
 from death by his mention of and claims to citizenship?

Men of no importance, born in an obscure rank, go to sea; they go to places which
 they have never seen before; where they can neither be known to the men among whom
 they have arrived, nor always find people to vouch for them. But still, owing to
 this confidence in the mere fact of their citizenship, they think that they shall be
 safe, not only among our own magistrates, who are restrained by fear of the laws and
 of public opinion, nor among our fellow citizens only, who are limited with them by
 community of language, of rights, and of many other things; but wherever they come
 they think that this will be a protection to them.

Take away this hope, take away this protection from Roman citizens, establish the
 fact that there is no assistance to be found in the words “I am a Roman citizen;”
 that a praetor, or any other officer, may with impunity order any punishment he
 pleases to be inflicted on a man who says that he is a Roman citizen, though no one
 knows that it is not true; and at one blow, by admitting that defence; you cut off
 from the Roman citizens all the provinces, all the kingdoms, all free cities, and
 indeed the whole world, which has hitherto been open most especially to our
 countrymen. But what shall be said if he named Lucius Pretius, a Roman knight, who
 was at that time living in Sicily as a
 trader, as a man who would vouch for him? Was it a very great undertaking to send
 letters to Panormus ? to keep the man?
 to detain him in prison, confined in the custody of your dear friends the
 Mamertines, till Pretius came from Panormus ? Did he know the man? Then you might remit some part of the
 extreme punishment. Did he not know him? Then, if you thought fit, you might
 establish this law for all people, that whoever was not known to you, and could not
 produce a rich man to vouch for him, even though he were a Roman citizen, was still
 to be crucified.

But why need I say more about Gavius? as if you were hostile to Gavius, and not
 rather an enemy to the name and class of citizens, and to all their rights. You were
 not, I say, an enemy to the individual, but to the common cause of liberty. For what
 was your object in ordering the Mamertines, when, according to their regular custom
 and usage, they had erected the cross behind the city in the Pompeian road, to place
 it where it looked towards the strait; and in adding, what you can by no means deny,
 what you said openly in the hearing of every one, that you chose that place in order
 that the man who said that he was a Roman citizen, might be able from his cross to
 behold Italy and to look towards his own
 home? And accordingly, O judges, that cross, for the first time since the foundation
 of Messana , was erected in that place. A
 spot commanding a view of Italy was picked
 out by that man, for the express purpose that the wretched man who was dying in
 agony and torture might see that the rights of liberty and of slavery were only
 separated by a very narrow strait, and that Italy might behold her son murdered by the most miserable and most
 painful punishment appropriate to slaves alone.

It is a crime to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is a wickedness; to put him
 to death is almost parricide. What shall I say of crucifying him? So guilty an
 action cannot by any possibility be adequately expressed by any name bad enough for
 it. Yet with all this that man was not content. “Let him behold his country,” said
 he; “let him die within sight of laws and liberty.” It was not Gavius, it was not
 one individual, I know not whom,—it was not one Roman citizen,—it was the common
 cause of freedom and citizenship that you exposed to that torture and nailed on that
 cross. But now consider the audacity of the man. Do not you think that he was
 indignant that be could not erect that cross for Roman citizens in the forum, in the
 comitium, in the very rostra? For the place in his province which was the most like
 those places in celebrity, and the nearest to them in point of distance, he did
 select. He chose that monument of his wickedness and audacity to be in the sight of
 Italy , in the very vestibule of
 Sicily , within sight of all passers-by as
 they sailed to and fro.

If I were to choose to make these complaints and to utter these lamentations, not
 to Roman citizens, not to any friends of our city, not to men who had heard of the
 name of the Roman people,—if I uttered them not to men, but to beasts,—or even, to
 go further, if I uttered them in some most desolate wilderness to the stones and
 rocks, still all things, mute and inanimate as they might be, would be moved by such
 excessive, by such scandalous atrocity of conduct. But now, when I am speaking
 before senators of the Roman people, the authors of the laws, of the courts of
 justice, and of all right, I ought not to fear that that man will not be judged to
 be the only Roman citizen deserving of that cross of his, and that all others will
 not be judged most undeserving of such a danger.

A little while ago, O judges, we did not restrain our tears at the miserable and
 most unworthy death of the naval captains; and it was right for us to be moved at
 the misery of our innocent allies; what now ought we to do when the lives of our
 relations are concerned? For the blood of all Roman citizens ought to be accounted
 kindred blood; since the consideration of the common safety, and truth requires it.
 All the Roman citizens in this place, both those who are present, and those who are
 absent in distant lands, require your severity, implore the aid of your good faith,
 look anxiously for your assistance. They think that all their privileges, all their
 advantages, all their defences, in short their whole liberty, depends on your
 sentence.

From me, although they have already had aid enough, still, if the affair should
 turn out ill, they will perhaps have more than the venture to ask for. For even
 though any violence should snatch that man from your severity, which I do not fear,
 a judges, nor do I think it by any means possible; still, if my expectations should
 in this deceive me, the Sicilians will complain that their cause is lost, and they
 will be as indignant as I shall myself; yet the Roman people, in a short time, since
 it has given me the power of pleading before them, shall through my exertions
 recover its rights by its own votes before the beginning of February. And if you
 have any anxiety, O judges, for my honour and for my renown, it is not unfavourable
 for my interests, that that man, having been saved from me at this trial, should be
 reserved for that decision of the Roman people. The cause is a splendid one, one
 easily to be proved by me, very acceptable and agreeable to the Roman people.
 Lastly, if I see where to have wished to rise at the expense of that one man, which
 I have not wished,—if he should be acquitted, (a thing which cannot happen without
 the wickedness of many men,) I shall be enabled to rise at the expense of many.
 
 
 But in truth, for your sake, O judges, and for
 the sake of the republic, I should grieve that such a crime was committed by this
 select bench of judges. I should grieve that those judges, whom I have myself
 approved of and joined in selecting, should walk about in this city branded with
 such disgrace by that man being acquitted, as to seem smeared not with wax, but with
 mud.

Wherefore, from this place I warn you also, O Hortensius, if there is any room for
 giving a warning, to take care again and again, and to consider what you are doing,
 and whither you are proceeding; what man it is whom you are defending, and by what
 means you are doing so. Nor in this manner do I seek at all to limit you, so as to
 prevent your contending against me with all your genius, and all your ability in
 speaking. As to other things, if you think that you can secretly manage, out of
 court, some of the things which belong to this judicial trial; if you think that you
 can effect anything by artifice, by cunning, by influence, by your own popularity,
 by that man's wealth; then I am strongly of opinion you had better abandon that
 idea. And I warn you rather to put down, I warn you not to suffer to proceed any
 further the attempts which have already been commenced by that man, but which have
 been thoroughly detected by, and are thoroughly known to me. It will be at a great
 risk to yourself that any error is committed in this trial; at a greater risk than
 you think.

For as for your thinking yourself now relieved from all fear for your reputation,
 and at the summit of all honour as consul elect, believe me, it is no less laborious
 a task to preserve those honours and kindnesses, conferred on you by the Roman
 people, than to acquire them. This city has borne as long as it could, as long as
 there was no help for it, that kingly sort of sway of yours which you have exercised
 in the courts of justice, and in every part of the republic. It has borne it, I say.
 But on the day when the tribunes of the people were restored to the Roman people,
 all those privileges (if you are not yourself already aware of it) were taken away
 from you. At this very time the eyes of all men are directed on each individual
 among us, to see with what good faith I prosecute him, with what scrupulous justice
 these men judge him, in what manner you defend him.

And in the case of all of us, if any one of us turns aside ever so little from the
 right path, there will follow, not that silent opinion of men which you were
 formerly accustomed to despise, but a severe and fearless judgment of the Roman
 people. You have, O Quintus, no relationship, no connection with that man. In the
 case of this man you can have none of those excuses with which you formerly used to
 defend your excessive zeal in any trial. You are bound to take care above all
 things, that the things which that fellow used to say in the province, when he said
 that he did all that he was doing out of his confidence in you, shall not be thought
 to be true.

I feel sure now that I have discharged my duty to the satisfaction of all those who
 are most unfavourable to me. For I convicted him, in the few hours which the first
 pleading occupied, in the opinion of every man. The remainder of the trial is not
 now about my good faith, which has been amply proved, nor about that fellow's way of
 life, which has bean fully condemned; but it is the judges, and if I am to tell the
 truth, it is yourself, who will now be passed sentence on. But when will that
 sentence be passed? For that is a point that must be much looked to, since in all
 things, and especially in state affairs, the consideration of time and circumstance
 is of the greatest importance. Why, at that time when the Roman people shall demand
 another class of men, another order of citizens to act as judges. Sentence will be
 pronounced in deciding on that law about new judges and fresh tribunals which has
 been proposed in reality not by the man whose name you see on the back of it, but by
 this defendant. Verres, I say, has contrived to have this law drawn up and proposed
 from the hope and opinion which he entertains of you.

Therefore, when this cause was first commenced, that law had not been proposed;
 when Verres, alarmed at your impartiality, had given many indications that he was
 not likely to make any reply at all, still no mention was made of that law; when he
 seemed to pick up a little courage and to fortify himself with some little hope,
 immediately this law was proposed. And as your dignity is exceedingly inconsistent
 with this law, so his false hopes and preeminent impudence are strongly in favour of
 it. In this case, if anything blameworthy be done by any of you, either the Roman
 people itself will judge that man whom it has already pronounced unworthy of any
 trial at all; or else those men will judge, who, because of the unpopularity of the
 existing tribunals, will be appointed as new judges by a new law made respecting the
 old judges.

For myself, even though I were not to say it myself, who is there who is not aware
 how far it is necessary for me to proceed? Will it be possible for me to be silent,
 O Hortensius? Will it be possible for me to dissemble, when the republic has
 received so severe a wound, that, though I pleaded the cause, our provinces will
 appear to have been pillaged, our allies oppressed, the immortal gods plundered,
 Roman citizens tortured and murdered with impunity? Will it be possible for me
 either to lay this burden on the shoulders of this tribunal, or any longer to endure
 it in silence? Must not the matter be agitated? must it not be brought publicly
 forward? Must not the good faith of the Roman people be implored? Must not all who
 have implicated themselves in such wickedness as to allow their good faith to be
 tampered with, or to give a corrupt decision, be summoned before the court, and made
 to encounter a public trial?

Perhaps some one will ask, Are you then going to take upon yourself such a labour,
 and such violent enmity from so many quarters? Not, of a truth, from any desire of
 mine, or of my own free will. But I have not the same liberty allowed me that they
 have who are born of noble family; on whom even when they are asleep all the honours
 of the Roman people are showered. I must live in this city on far other terms and
 other conditions. For the case of Marcus Cato, a most wise and active man, occurs to
 me; who, as he thought that it was better to be recommended to the Roman people by
 virtue than by high birth, and as he wished that the foundation of his race and name
 should be hid and extended by himself, voluntarily encountered the enmity of most
 influential men, and lived in the discharge of the greatest labours to an extreme
 old age with great credit.

After that, did not Quintus Pompeius, a man born in a low and obscure rank of life,
 gain the very highest honours by encountering the enmity of many, and great personal
 danger, and by undertaking great labour? And lately we have seen Caius Fimbria,
 Caius Marcius, and Caius Caelius, striving with no slight toil, and in spite of no
 insignificant opposition, to arrive at those honours which you nobles arrive at
 while devoted to amusement or absorbed in indifference. This is the system, this is
 the path for our adoption. These are the men whose conduct and principles we follow.
 
 
 We see how unpopular with, and how hateful to
 some men of noble birth, is the virtue and industry of new men; that, if we only
 turn our eyes away for a moment, snares are laid for us; that, if we give the least
 room for suspicion or for accusation, an attack is immediately made on us; that we
 must be always vigilant, always labouring. Are there any enmities?—let them be
 encountered; any toils?—Let them be undertaken.

In truth, silent and secret enmities are more to be dreaded than war openly
 declared and waged against us. There's scarcely one man of noble birth who looks
 favourably on our industry; there are no services of ours by which we can secure
 their good-will; they differ from us in disposition and inclination, as if they were
 of a different race and a different nature. What danger then is there to us in their
 enmity, when their dispositions are already averse and inimical to us before we have
 at all provoked their enmity?

Wherefore, O judges, I earnestly wish that I may appear for the last time in the
 character of an accuser, in the case of this criminal, when I shall have given
 satisfaction to the Roman people, and discharged the duty due to the Sicilians my
 client, and which I have voluntarily undertaken. But it is my deliberate resolution,
 if the event should deceive the expectation which I cherish of you, to prosecute not
 only those who are particularly implicated in the guilt of corrupting the tribunal,
 but those also who have in any way been accomplices in it. Moreover, if there be any
 persons, who in the case of the criminal have any inclination to show themselves
 powerful, or audacious, or ingenious in corrupting the tribunal, let them hold
 themselves ready, seeing that they will have to fight a battle with us, while the
 Roman people will be the judges of the contest. And if they know that, in the case
 of this criminal, whom the Sicilian nation has given me for my enemy, I have been
 sufficiently energetic, sufficiently persevering, and sufficiently vigilant, they
 may conceive that I shall be a much more formidable and active enemy to those men
 whose enmity I have encountered of my own accord, for the sake of the Roman people.

Now, O good and great Jupiter , you, whose
 royal present, worthy of your most splendid temple, worthy of the Capitol and of
 that citadel of all nations, worthy of being the gift of a king, made for you by a
 king, dedicated and promised to you, that man by his nefarious wickedness wrested
 from the hands of a monarch; you whose most holy and most beautiful image he carried
 away from Syracuse ;—And you, O royal
 Juno, whose two temples, situated in two islands of our allies—at Melita and Samos—temples of the greatest sanctity
 and the greatest antiquity, that same man, with similar wickedness, stripped of all
 their presents and ornaments;—And you, O Minerva, whom he also pillaged in two of
 your most renowned and most venerated temples—at Athens , when he took away a great quantity of gold, and at Syracuse , when he took away everything except
 the roof and walls;—

And you, O Latona , O Apollo, O Diana, whose
 (I will not say temples, but, as the universal opinion and religious belief agrees,)
 ancient birthplace and divine home at Delos 
 he plundered by a nocturnal robbery and attack;—You, also, O Apollo, whose image he
 carried away from Chios ;—You, again and
 again, O Diana, whom he plundered at Perga; whose most holy image at Segesta , where it had been twice
 consecrated—once by their own religious gift, and a second time by the victory of
 Publius Africanus—he dared to take away and remove;—And you, O Mercury, whom Verres
 had placed in his villa, and in some private palaestra, but whom Publius Africanus
 had placed in a city of the allies. and in the gymnasium of the Tyndaritans, as a
 guardian and protector of the youth of the city;—

And you, O Hercules, whom that man endeavoured, on a stormy night, with a band of
 slaves properly equipped and armed, to tear down from your situation, and to carry
 off;—And you, O most holy mother Cybele, whom he left among the Enguini, in your
 most august and venerated temple, plundered to such an extent, that the name only of
 Africanus, and some traces of your worship thus violated, remain, but the monuments
 of victory and all the ornaments of the temple are no longer visible,—You, also, O
 you judges and witnesses of all forensic matters, and of the most important
 tribunals, and of the laws, and of the courts of justice,—you, placed in the most
 frequented place belonging to the Roman people, O Castor and Pollux, from whose
 temple that man, in a most wicked manner, procured gain to himself, and enormous
 booty;—And, O all ye gods, who, borne on sacred cars, visit the solemn assemblies of
 our games, whose road that fellow contrived should be adapted, not to the dignity of
 your religious ceremonies, but to his own profit;

—And you, O Ceres and Libera, whose sacred
 worship, as the opinions and religious belief of all men agree, is contained in the
 most important and most abstruse mysteries; you, by whom the principles of life and
 food, the examples of laws, customs, humanity, and refinement are said to have been
 given and distributed to nations and to cities; you, whose sacred rites the Roman
 people has received from the Greeks and adopted, and now preserves with such
 religious awe, both publicly and privately, that they seem not to have been
 introduced from other nations, but rather to nave been transmitted from hence to
 other nations, but which nave been polluted and violated by that man alone, in such
 a manner, that he had one image of Ceres 
 (which it was impious for a man not only to touch, but even to look upon) pulled
 down from its place in the temple at Catina , and taken away; and another image of whom he carried away from
 its proper seat and home at Enna ; which was
 a work of such beauty, that men, when they saw it, thought either that they saw
 Ceres herself, or an image of
 Ceres not wrought by human hand, but one
 that had fallen from heaven;—

You, again and again I implore and appeal to, most holy goddesses, who dwell around
 those lakes and groves of Enna , and who
 preside over all Sicily , which is entrusted
 to me to be defended; you whose invention and gift of corn, which you have
 distributed over the whole earth, inspires all nations and all races of men with
 reverence for your divine power;—And all the other gods, and all the goddesses, do I
 implore and entreat, against whose temples and religious worship that man, inspired
 by some wicked frenzy and audacity, has always waged a sacrilegious and impious war,
 that, if in dealing with this criminal and this cause my counsels have always tended
 to the safety of the allies, the dignity of the Roman people, and the maintenance of
 my own character for good faith; if all my cares, and vigilance, and thoughts have
 been directed to nothing but the discharge of my duty, and the establishment of
 truth, I implore them, O judges, so to influence you, that the thoughts which were
 mine when I undertook this cause, the good faith which has been mine in pleading it,
 may be yours also in deciding it.

Lastly, that, if all the actions of Caius Verres are unexampled and unheard of
 instances of wickedness, of audacity, of perfidy, of lust, of avarice, and of
 cruelty, an end worthy of such a life and such actions may, by your sentence,
 overtake him; and that the republic, and my own duty to it, may be content with my
 undertaking this one prosecution, and that I may be allowed for the future to defend
 the good, instead of being compelled to prosecute the infamous.