In C. Verrem

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 [*](This is another pun on the name of Verres, from its similarity in sound to the word verro, I 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.