Against Verres

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2.5.116.1
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.
2.5.117.1
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.
2.5.118.1
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.
2.5.119.1
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.
2.5.120.1
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.
2.5.121.1
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.
2.5.122.1
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.
2.5.123.1
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!
2.5.124.1
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!
2.5.125.1
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.
2.5.126.1
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.
2.5.127.1
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.
2.5.128.1
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.
2.5.129.1
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.
2.5.130.1
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.
2.5.131.1
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.
2.5.132.1
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?
2.5.133.1
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.
2.5.134.1
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.
2.5.135.1
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.
2.5.136.1
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.
2.5.137.1
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;
2.5.138.1
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?
2.5.139.1
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.
2.5.140.1
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.
2.5.141.1
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.
2.5.142.1
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.
2.5.143.1
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.
2.5.144.1
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?
2.5.145.1
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;
2.5.146.1
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.
2.5.147.1
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.]
2.5.148.1
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.
2.5.149.1
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.
2.5.150.1
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?
2.5.151.1
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?
2.5.152.1
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.
2.5.153.1
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.
2.5.154.1
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.
2.5.155.1
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.
2.5.156.1
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.
2.5.157.1
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?
2.5.158.1
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.
2.5.159.1
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.
2.5.160.1
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.
2.5.161.1
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.
2.5.162.1
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.
2.5.163.1
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.
2.5.164.1
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.
2.5.165.1
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.
2.5.166.1
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?
2.5.167.1
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.
2.5.168.1
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.
2.5.169.1
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.
2.5.170.1
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.
2.5.171.1
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.
2.5.172.1
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.
2.5.173.1
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.
2.5.174.1
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.
2.5.175.1
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.
2.5.176.1
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.
2.5.177.1
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.
2.5.178.1
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.
2.5.179.1
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?
2.5.180.1
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.
2.5.181.1
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.
2.5.182.1
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?
2.5.183.1
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.
2.5.184.1
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;—
2.5.185.1
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;—
2.5.186.1
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;
2.5.187.1
—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;—
2.5.188.1
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.
2.5.189.1
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.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0474.phi005.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.