In C. Verrem

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 [*](Cicero here, one may almost say, plays on the meanings of the word legatus, which means not only a lieutenant, but also an ambassador The persons of ambassadors have always, by the laws of nations, been considered to be sacred but Verres was not an ambassador, but a 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.