In C. Verrem

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.

Some one will say, “What fault then do you find with Verres in this, who not only is not a thief himself, but who did not even allow any one else to be one?” Listen a moment. Now you shall see that this money which was just now seen to leave his house by the main road returned back again by a by-path. What came next? Ought not the praetor, having inquired into the case with the bench of judges, when he had found out that a companion of his own, with the object of corruptly swaying the law, the sentence, and the bench, (a matter in which the reputation of the praetor and even his condition as a free citizen were at stake,) had received money, and that the men of Bidis had given it, doing injury to the fair fame and fortune of the praetor,—ought he not, I say, to have punished both him who had taken the money, and those who had given it? You who had determined to punish those who had given an erroneous decision, which is often done out of ignorance, do you permit men to escape with impunity who thought that money might be received or be paid for the purpose of influencing your decree, your judicial decision? And yet that same Volcatius remained with you, although he was a Roman knight, after he had such disgrace put upon him.

For what is more disgraceful for a well-born man—what more unworthy of a free man, than to be compelled by the magistrate before a numerous assembly to restore what has been stolen; and if he had been of the disposition of which not only a Roman knight, but every free man ought to be, he would not have been able after that to look you in the face. He would have been a foe, an enemy, after he had been subjected to such an insult; unless, indeed, it had been done through collusion with you, and he had been serving your reputation rather than his own. And how great a friend he not only was to you then as long as he was with you in the province, but how great a friend he is even now, when you have long since been deserted by all the rest, you know yourself, and we can conceive. But is this the only argument that nothing was done without his knowledge, that Volcatius was not offended with him? that he punished neither Volcatius nor the men of Bidis?

It is a great proof, but this is the greatest proof of all, that to those very men of Bidis, with whom he ought to have been angry, as being the men by whom he found out that his decree had been attempted to be influenced by bribes, because they could do nothing against Epicrates according to law, even if he were present,—to these very men, I say, he not only gave that inheritance which had come to Epicrates, but, as in the case of Heraclius of Syracuse, so too in this case, (which was even rather more atrocious than the other, because Epicrates had actually never had any action brought against him at all,) he gave them all his paternal property and fortune. For he showed that if any one made a demand of any thing from an absent person, he would hear the cause, though without any precedent for so doing. The men of Bidis appear—they claim the inheritance. The agents of Epicrates demand that he would either refer them to their own laws, or else appoint judges, in accordance with the provisions of the Rupilian law. The adversaries did not dare to say anything against this; no escape from it could be devised. They accuse the man of having fled for the purpose of cheating them. They demand to be allowed to take possession of his property.

Epicrates did not owe a farthing to any one. His friends said that, if any one claimed anything from him, they would stand the trial themselves, and that they would give security to satisfy the judgment. When the whole business was getting cool, by Verres's instigation they began to accuse Epicrates of having tampered with the public documents; a suspicion from which he was far removed. They demand a trial on that charge. His friends began to object that no new proceeding, that no trial affecting his rank and reputation, ought to be instituted while he was absent; and at the same time they did not cease to reiterate their demands that Verres should refer them to their own laws.

He, having now got ample room for false accusation, when he sees that there is any point on which his friends refused to appear for Epicrates in his absence, declares that he will appoint a trial on that charge before any other. When all saw plainly that not only that money which had (to make a presence) been sent from his house, had returned back to it, but that he had afterwards received much more money, the friends of Epicrates ceased to argue in his defence. Verres ordered the men of Bidis to take possession of all his property, and to keep it for themselves. Besides the five hundred thousand sesterces which the inheritance amounted to, his own previous fortune amounted to fifteen hundred thousand. Was the affair planned out in this way from the beginning? Was it completed in this way? Is it a very trifling sum of money? Is Verres such a man as to be likely to have done all this which I have related for nothing?

Now, O judges, hear a little about the misery of the Sicilians. Both Heraclius the Syracusan, and Epicrates of Bidis, being stripped of all their property, came to Rome. They lived at Rome nearly two years in mourning attire, with unshaven beard and hair. When Lucius Metellus went to the province, then they also go back with Metellus, bearing with them letters of high recommendation. As soon as Metellus came to Syracuse he rescinded both the sentences—the sentence in the case of Epicrates, and that against Heraclius. In the property of both of them there was nothing which could be restored, except what was not able to be moved from its place.

Metellus had acted admirably on his first arrival, in rescinding and making of no effect all the unjust acts of that man which he could rescind. He had ordered Heraclius to be restored to his property; he was not restored. Every Syracusan senator who was accused by Heraclius he ordered to be imprisoned. And on this ground many were imprisoned. Epicrates was restored at once. Other sentences which had been pronounced at Lilybaeum, at Agrigentum, and at Panormus, were reviewed and reformed. Metellus showed that he did not mean to attend to the returns which had been made while Verres was praetor. The tithes which he had sold in a manner contrary to the Lex Hieronica, he said that he would sell according to that law. All the actions of Metellus went to the same point, so that he seemed to be remodeling the whole of Verres's praetorship. As soon as I arrived in Sicily, he changed his conduct.

A man of the name of Letilius had come to him two days before, a man not unversed in literature, so he constantly used him as his secretary. He had brought him many letters, and, among them, one from home which had changed the whole man. On a sudden he began to say that he wished to do everything to please Verres; that he was connected with him by the ties of both friendship and relationship. All men wondered that this should now at last have occurred to him, after he had injured him by so many actions and so many decisions. Some thought that Letilius had come as an ambassador from Verres, to put him in mind of their mutual interests, their friendship, and their relationship. From that time he began to solicit the cities for testimony in favour of Verres, and not only to try to deter the witnesses against him by threats, but even to detain them by force. And if I had not by my arrival checked his endeavours in some degree, and striven among the Sicilians, by the help of Glabrio's letters and of the law, I should not have been able to bring so many witnesses into this court.

But, as I began to say, remark the miseries of the Sicilians. Heraclius, whom I have mentioned, and Epicrates came forward a great distance to meet me, with all their friends. When I came to Syracuse, they thanked me with tears; they wished to leave Syracuse, and go to Rome in my company: because I had many other towns left which I wanted to go to, I arranged with the men on what day they were to meet me at Messana. They sent a messenger to me there, that they were detained by the praetor. And though I summoned them formally to attend and give evidence,—though I gave in their names to Metellus,—though they were very eager to come, having been treated with the most enormous injustice, they have not arrived yet. These are the rights which the allies enjoy now, not to be allowed even to complain of their distresses.

You have already heard the evidence of Heraclius of Centuripa, a most virtuous and noble young man, from whom a hundred thousand sesterces were claimed by a fraudulent and false accusation. Verres, by means of penalties and securities [*](The compromissum was money deposited by both parties as a security for their obeying the decision of the judge, “though the same term was also employed to express the engagement by which parties agreed to settle their differences by arbitration, without the intervention of the praetor.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 530, v. Judex.) exacted, contrived to extort three hundred thousand; and the sentence which had been given in favour of Heraclius, in the affairs about which security had been given) he set aside, because a citizen of Centuripa had acted as judge between two of his fellow-citizens, and he said that he had given a false decision; he forbade him to appear in the senate, and deprived him by an interdict of all the privileges of citizens and of access to all public places. If any one struck him, he announced that he would take no cognisance of the injury; that if any claim were made on him, he would appoint a judge from his own retinue, but that he would not allow him an action on any ground whatever.

And his authority in the province had just this weight, that no one did strike him, though the praetor in his province gave every one leave by word, and in reality incited them to do so; nor did any one claim anything of him, though he had given licence to false accusation by his authority; yet that heavy mark of ignominy was attached to the man as long as Verres remained in the province. After this fear had been impressed on the judges, in a manner unexampled and wholly without precedent, do you suppose that any matter was decided in Sicily except according to his will and pleasure? Does this appear to have been the only effect of it, (which effect, however, it had,) to take his money from Heraclius? or was not this also the object, as the means by which the greatest plunder was to be got,—to bring, under presence of judicial decision, the property and fortune of every one into the power of that one man?

But why should I seek out every separate transaction and cause in the trials which took place on capital charges? Out of many, which are all nearly alike, I will select those which seem to go beyond all the others in rascality. There was a man of Halicya, named Sopater, among the first men of his state for riches and high character. He, having been accused by his enemies before Caius Sacerdos the praetor, on a capital charge, was easily acquitted. The same enemies again accused this same Sopater on the same charge before Caius Verres when he had come as successor to Sacerdos. The matter appeared trifling to Sopater, both because he was innocent, and because he thought that Verres would never dare to overturn the decision of Sacerdos. The defendant is cited to appear. The cause is heard at Syracuse. Those changes are brought forward by the accusers which had been already previously extinguished, not only by the defence, but also by the decision.

Quintus Minucius, a Roman knight, among the first for a high and honourable reputation, and not unknown to you, O judges, defended the cause of Sopater. There was nothing in the cause which seemed possible to be feared, or even to be doubted about at all. In the meantime that same Timarchides, that fellow's attendant and freedman, who is, as you have learnt by many witnesses at the former hearing, his agent and manager in all affairs of this sort, comes to Sopater, and advised him not to trust too much to the decision of Sacerdos and the justice of his cause; he tells him that his accusers and enemies have thoughts of giving money to the praetor, but that the praetor would rather take it to acquit; and at the same time, that he had rather, if it were possible, not rescind a decision of his predecessor. Sopater, as this happened to him quite suddenly and unexpectedly, was greatly perplexed, and had no answer ready to make to Timarchides, except that he would consider what he had best do in such a case; and at the same time he told him that he was in great difficulties respecting money matters. Afterwards he consulted with his friends; and as they advised him to purchase an acquittal, he came to Timarchides. Having explained his difficulties to him, he brings the man down to eighty thousand sesterces, and pays him that money.

When the cause came to be heard, all who were defending Sopater were without any fear or any anxiety. No crime had been committed; the matter had been decided; Verres had received the money. Who could doubt how it would turn out? The matter is not summed up that day; the court breaks up; Timarchides comes a second time to Sopater. He says that his accusers were promising a much larger sum to the praetor than what he had given, and that if he were wise he would consider what he had best do. The man, though he was a Sicilian, and a defendant—that is to say, though he had little chance of obtaining justice—and was in an unfortunate position, still would not bear with or listen to Timarchides any longer. Do, said he, whatever you please; I will not give any more And this, too, was the advice of his friends and defenders; and so much the more, because Verres, however he might conduct himself on the trial, still had with him on the bench some honourable men of the Syracusan community, who had also been on the bench with Sacerdos when this same Sopater had been acquitted. They considered that it was absolutely impossible for the same men, who had formerly acquitted Sopater, to condemn him now on the same charge, supported by the same witnesses. And so with this one hope they came before the court.

And when they came thither, when the same men came in numbers on the bench who were used to sit there, and when the whole defence of Sopater rested on this hope, namely, on the number and dignity of the bench of judges, and on the fact of their being, as I have said before, the same men who had before acquitted Sopater of the same charge, mark the open rascality and audacity of the man, not attempted to be disguised, I will not say under any reason, but with even the least dissimulation. He orders Marcus Petilius, a Roman knight, whom he had with him on the bench, to attend to a private cause in which he was judge. Petilius refused, because Verres himself was detaining his friends whom he had wished to have with him on the bench. He, liberal man, said that he did not wish to detain any of the men who preferred being with Petilius. And so they all go; for the rest also prevail upon him not to detain them, saying that they wished to appear in favour of one or other of the parties who were concerned in that trial. And so he is left alone with his most worthless retinue.

Minucius, who was defending Sopater, did not doubt that Verres, since he had dismissed the whole bench, would not proceed with the investigation of his cause that day; when all of a sudden he is ordered to state his case. He answers, “To whom?” “To me,” says Verres, “if I appear to you of sufficient dignity to try the cause of a Sicilian, a Greek.” “Certainly,” says he, “you are of sufficient dignity, but I wish for the presence of those men who were present before, and were acquainted with the case.” “State your case,” says he; “they cannot be present.” “For in truth,” says Quintus Minucius, “Petilius begged me also to be with him on the bench;” and at the same time he began to leave his seat as counsel.