In C. Verrem

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: [*](See the note on the next oration, “De Re Frumentaria,” for an explanation of this; and on points connected with the topic of corn, and the societas of the publicani, see the Argument of the next oration.) 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.