In C. Verrem

Therefore our ancestors made their first strides to dominion over Africa from this province. Nor would the mighty power of Carthage so soon have fallen, if Sicily had not been open to us, both as a granary to supply us with corn, and as a harbour for our fleets. Wherefore, Publius Africanus, when he had destroyed Carthage, adorned the cities of the Sicilians with most beautiful statues and monuments, in order to place the greatest number of monuments of his victory among those whom he thought were especially delighted at the victory of the Roman people.

Afterwards that illustrious man, Marcus Marcellus himself, whose valour in Sicily was felt by his enemies, his mercy by the conquered, and his good faith by all the Sicilians, not only provided in that war for the advantage of his allies, but spared even his conquered enemies. When by valour and skill he had taken Syracuse, that most beautiful city, which was not only strongly fortified by art, but was protected also by its natural advantages—by the character of the ground about it, and by the sea—he not only allowed it to remain without any diminution of its strength, but he left it so highly adorned, as to be at the same time a monument of his victory, of his clemency, and of his moderation; when men saw both what he had subdued, and whom he had spared, and what he had left behind him. He thought that Sicily was entitled to have so much honour paid to her, that he did not think that he ought to destroy even an enemy's city in an island of such allies.

And therefore we have always so esteemed the island of Sicily for every purpose, as to think that whatever she could produce was not so much raised among the Sicilians as stored up in our own homes. When did she not deliver the corn which she was bound to deliver, by the proper day? When did she fail to promise us, of her own accord, whatever she thought we stood in need of? When did she ever refuse anything which was exacted of her? Therefore that illustrious Marcus Cato the wise called Sicily a storehouse of provisions for our republic—the nurse of the Roman people. But we experienced, in that long and difficult Italian war which we encountered, that Sicily was not only a storehouse of provisions to us, but was also an old and well-filled treasury left us by our ancestors; for, supplying us with hides, with tunics, and with corn, it clothed, armed, and fed our most numerous armies, without any expense at all to us.

What more need I say? How great are these services, O judges, which perhaps we are hardly aware we are receiving,—that we have many wealthy citizens, that they have a province with which they are connected, faithful and productive to which they may easily make excursions, where they may be welcome to engage in traffic; citizens, some of whom she dismisses with gain and profit by supplying them with merchandise, some she retains, as they take a fancy to turn farmers, or graziers, or traders in her land, or even to pitch in it their habitations and their homes. And this is no trifling advantage to the Roman people, that so vast a number of Roman citizens should be detained so near home by such a respectable and profitable business.

And since our tributary nations and our provinces are, as it were, farms belonging to the Roman people; just as one is most pleased with those farms which are nearest to one, so too the suburban character of this province is very acceptable to the Roman people. And as to the inhabitants themselves, O judges, such is their patience their virtue, and their frugality, that they appear to come very nearly up to the old-fashioned manners of our country, and not to those which now prevail. There is nothing then like the rest of the Greeks; no sloth, no luxury; on the contrary there is the greatest diligence in all public and private affairs, the greatest economy, and the greatest vigilance. Moreover, they are so fond of our nation that they are the only people where neither a publican nor a money-changer is unpopular.

And they have born the injuries of many of our magistrates with such a disposition, that they have never till this time fled by any public resolution to the altar of our laws and to your protection; although they endured the misery of that year which so prostrated them that they could not have been preserved through it, if Caius Marcellus had not come among them, by some special providence, as it were, in order that the safety of Sicily might be twice secured by the same family. Afterwards, too, they experienced that terrible government of Marcus Antonius. For they had had these principles handed down to them from their ancestors, that the kindnesses of the Roman people to the Sicilians had been so great, that they ought to think even the injustice of some of our men endurable.

The states have never before this man's time given any public evidence against any one. And they would have borne even this man himself, if he had sinned against them like a man, in any ordinary manner; or in short, in any one single kind of tyranny. But as they were unable to endure luxury, cruelty, avarice, and pride, when they had lost by the wickedness and lust of one man all their own advantages, all their own rights, and all fruits of the kindness of the senate and the Roman people, they determined either to avenge themselves for the injuries they had suffered from that man by your instrumentality or if they seemed to you unworthy of receiving aid and assistance at your hands, then to leave their cities and their homes, since they had already left their fields, having been driven out of them by his injuries.

With this design all the deputations begged of Lucius Metellus that he would come as his successor as early as possible; with these feelings, they so often bewailed their miseries to their patrons; agitated by this indignation, they addressed the consuls with demands, which seemed to be not demands, but charges against that tyrant. They contrived also, by their indignation and their tears, to draw me, whose good faith and moderation they had experienced, almost from the employment of my life, in order to become his accuser; an action with which both the settled plan of my life and my inclination are utterly inconsistent (although in this business I appear to have undertaken a cause which has more parts of defence than of accusation in it).