In C. Verrem

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

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

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

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

But if this also be added, that the praetor assigns the trial to take place according to such a formula, that even Lucius Octavius Balbus, if he were judge, (a man of the greatest experience in all that belongs to the law and to the duties of a judge,) could not decide otherwise: suppose it ran in this way:—“Let Lucius Octavius be the judge; if it appears that the farm at Capena, which is in dispute, belongs, according to the law of the Roman people, to Publius Servilius, that farm must be restored to Quintus Catulus,” will not Lucius Octavius be bound, as judge, to compel Publius Servilius to restore the farm to Quintus Catulus, or to condemn him whom he ought not to condemn? The whole praetorian law was like that; the whole course of judicial proceedings in Sicily was like that for three years, while Verres was praetor. His decrees were like this:—“If he does not accept what you say that you owe, accuse him; if he claims anything, take him to prison.” He ordered Caius Fuficius, who claimed something, to be taken to prison; so he did Lucius Suetius and Lucius Rucilius. His tribunals he formed in this way:—those who were Roman citizens were to be judges, when Sicilians ought to have been, according to their laws, those who were Sicilians were to be judges, when Romans [*](The text here is very much disputed, and is probably wholly corrupt. I have endeavoured to give what is certainly the general sense intended to be conveyed, though it can scarcely be extracted from the Latin Graevius reads,...“Si Siculi essent, tum si eorum legibus...” printing it all in large letters, as if they were the words of a decree of Verres.) should have been.

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