In C. Verrem

By means of the same partners in his injuries, and thefts, and bribes, during his command the festival of Marcellus at Syracuse is abolished, to the great grief of the city;—a festival which they both gladly paid as due to the recent services done them by Caius Marcellus, and also most gladly gave to the family and name and race of the Marcelli. Mithridates in Asia, when he had occupied the whole of that province, did not abolish the festival of Mucius. [*](In honour of Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who had been praetor in that province, and had established a high character for lenity and incorruptibility.) An enemy, and he too an enemy in other respects, only too savage and barbarous, still would not violate the honour of a name which had been consecrated by holy ceremonies. You forbade the Syracusans to grant one day of festival to the Marcelli, to whom they owed the being able to celebrate other days of festival.

Oh, but you gave them a splendid day instead of it; you allowed them to celebrate a festival in honour of Verres, and issued contracts for providing all that would be necessary for sacrifices and banquets on that day for many years. But in such an enormous superfluity of impudence as that man's, it seems better to pass over some things, that we may not appear to strain every point,—that we may not appear to have no feelings but those of indignation. For time, voice, lungs, would fail me, if I wished now to cry out how miserable and scandalous it is, that there should be a festive day in his name among those people, who think themselves utterly ruined by that man's conduct. O splendid Verrine festival! whither have you gone that you have not brought the people cause to remember that day? In truth, what house, what city, what temple even have you ever approached without leaving it emptied and ruined. Let the festival, then, be fitly called Verrine, [*](There is a recurrence here to the pun on the word verres, a boar.) and appear to be established, not from recollection of your name, but of your covetousness and your natural disposition.

See, O judges, how easily injustice, and the habit of doing wrong creeps on; see how difficult it is to check. There is a town called Bidis, an insignificant one indeed, not far from Syracuse. By far the first man of that city is a man of the name of Epicrates. An inheritance of five hundred thousand sesterces had come to him from some woman who was a relation of his, and so near a relation, that even if she had died intestate, Epicrates must have been her heir according to the laws of Bidis. The transaction at Syracuse which I have just mentioned was fresh in men's memories,—the affair I mean of Heraclius the Syracusan, who would not have lost his property if an inheritance had not come to him. To this Epicrates too an inheritance had come, as I have said.

His enemies began to consider that he too might be easily turned out of his property by the same praetor as Heraclius had been stripped of his by; they plan the affair secretly; they suggest it to Verres by his emissaries. The cause is arranged, so that the people belonging to the palaestra at Bidis are to claim his inheritance from Epicrates, just as the men of the Syracusan palaestra had claimed his from Heraclius. You never saw a praetor so devoted to the interests of the palaestra. But he defended the men of the palaestra in such a way that he himself came off with his wheels all the better greased. In this instance Verres, as soon as he foresaw what would happen, ordered eighty thousand sesterces to be paid to one of his friends.

The matter could not be kept entirely secret. Epicrates is informed of it by one of those who were concerned in it. At first he began to disregard and despise it, because the claim made against him had actually nothing in it about which a doubt could be raised. Afterwards when he thought of Heraclius, and recollected the licentiousness of Verres, he thought it better to depart secretly from the province. He did so; he went to Rhegium. And when this was known, they began to fret who had paid the money. They thought that nothing could be done in the absence of Epicrates. For Heraclius indeed had been present when the judges were appointed; but in the case of this man, who had departed before any steps had been taken in the action, before indeed there had been any open mention made of the dispute, they thought that nothing could be done. The men go to Rhegium; they go to Epicrates; they point out to him, what indeed he knew, that they had paid eighty thousand sesterces; they beg him to make up to them the money they themselves were out of pocket; they tell him he may take any security from them that he likes, that none of them will go to law with Epicrates about that inheritance.

Epicrates reproaches the men at great length and with great severity, and dismisses them. They return from Rhegium to Syracuse; they complain to many people, as men in such a case are apt to do, that they have paid eighty thousand sesterces for nothing. The affair got abroad; it began to be the topic of every one's conversation. Verres repeats his old Syracusan trick. He says he wants to examine into that affair of the eighty thousand sesterces. He summons many people before him. The men of Bidis say that they gave it to Volcatius; they do not add that they had done so by his command. He summons Volcatius; he orders the money to be refunded. Volcatius with great equanimity brings the money, like a man who was sure to lose nothing by it; he returns it to them in the sight of many people; the men of Bidis carry the money away.