In C. Verrem

How severe all this is, and how little, after all these deductions are made, can be left of clear profit for the owners, I think you, from your own farming experience, can guess. Add, now, to all this, the edicts, the regulations, the injuries of Verres,—add the reign and the rapine of Apronius, and the slaves of Apronius, in the land subject to the payment of tenths. Although I pass over all this; I am speaking of the granary. Is it your intention that the Sicilians should give corn to our magistrates for their granaries for nothing? What can be more scandalous, what can be more iniquitous than that? And yet, know you that this would have seemed to the cultivators a thing to be wished for, to be begged for, while that man was praetor. Sositenus is a citizen of Entella; a man of the greatest prudence, and of the noblest birth in his city. You have heard what he said when he was sent by the public authority to this trial as a deputy, together with Artemon and Meniscus, men of the highest character. He, when in the senate at Entella he was discussing with me the injustice of Verres, said this: that, if the question of the granaries and of the valuation were conceded, the Sicilians were willing to promise the senate corn for the granary without payment, so that we need not for the future vote such large sums to our magistrates.

I am sure that you clearly perceive how advantageous this would be for the Sicilians not because of the justice of such a condition, but in the way of choosing the least of two evils; for the man who had given Verres a thousand modii for the granary as his share of the contribution required, would have given two, or, at most, three thousand sesterces, but the same man has now been compelled for the same quantity of corn to give eight thousand sesterces. A cultivator could not stand this for three years, at least not out of his own produce. He must inevitably have sold his stock. But if the land can endure this contribution and this tribute,—that is to say, if Sicily can bear and support it, let it pay it to the Roman people rather than to our magistrates. It is a great sum, a great and splendid revenue. If you can obtain it without damage to the province, without injury to our allies, I do not object at all. Let as much be given to the magistrates for their granary as has always been given. What Verres demands besides, that, if they cannot provide it, let them refuse. If they can provide it, let it be the revenue of the Roman people rather than the plunder of the praetor.

In the next place, why is that valuation established for only one description of corn? If it is just and endurable, then Sicily owes the Roman people tenths; let it give three denarii for each single modius of wheat; let it keep the corn itself. Money has been paid to you, O Verres,—one sum with which you were to buy corn for the granary, the other with which you were to buy corn from the cities to send to Rome. You keep at your own house the money which has been given to you; and besides that, you receive a vast sum in your own name. Do the same with respect to that corn which belongs to the Roman people; exact money from the cities according to the same valuation, and give back what you have received,—then the treasury of the Roman people will be better filled than it ever has been.

But Sicily could not endure that in the case of the public corn; she did indeed bear it in the case of my own. Just as if that valuation was more just when your advantage was concerned, than when that of the Roman people was; or, as if the conduct which I speak of and that which you adopted, differed only in the description of the injury, and not in the magnitude of the sum involved. But that granary they can by no means bear, not even if everything else be remitted; not even if they were for ever hereafter delivered from all the injuries and distresses which they have suffered while you were praetor, still they say that they could not by any possibility support that granary and that valuation.

Sophocles of Agrigentum, a most eloquent man, adorned with every sort of learning and with every virtue, is said to have spoken lately before Cnaeus Pompeius, when he was consul, on behalf of all Sicily, concerning the miseries of the cultivators, with great earnestness and great variety of arguments, and to have lamented their condition to him. And of all the things which he mentioned, this appeared the most scandalous to those who were present, (for the matter was discussed in the presence of a numerous assembly,) that, in the very matter in which the senate had dealt most honestly and most kindly with the cultivators, in that the praetor should plunder, and the cultivators be ruined and that should not only be done, but done in such a manner as if it were lawful and permitted.

What says Hortensius to this? that the charge is false? He will never say this.—That no great sum was gained by this method? He will not even say that.—That no injury was done to Sicilians and the cultivators? How can he say that?—What then, will he say,—That it was done by other men. What is the meaning of this? Is it a defence against the charge, or company in banishment that he is seeking for? Will you in this republic, in this time of unchecked caprice, and (as up to this time the course of judicial proceedings has proved) licentiousness on the part of men, will you defend that which is found fault with, and affirm that it has been done properly; not by reference to right, nor to equity, nor to law, nor because it was expedient, nor because it was allowed, but because it was some one else who did it?

Other men, too, hare done other things, and plenty of them; why in this charge alone do you use this sort of defence? There are some things in you so extraordinary, that they cannot be said of, or meet in the character of, any other man; there are some things which you have in common with many men. Therefore, to say nothing of your acts of peculation, or of your taking money for the appointment of judges, and other things of that sort which, perhaps, other men also may have committed; will you defend yourself, also, from the charge which I bring against you as the most serious one of all—the charge, namely, of having taken money to influence your legal decisions, by the same argument, that others have done so too? Even if I were to admit the assertion, still I should not admit it as any defence. For it would be better that by your condemnation there should be more limited room for defending dishonesty left to others, than that, owing to your acquittal, others should be thought to have legitimately done what they have done with the greatest audacity.

All the provinces are mourning; all the nations that are free are complaining; every kingdom is expostulating with us about our covetousness and our injustice; there is now no place on this side of the ocean, none so distant, none so out of the way, that, in these latter times, the lust and iniquity of our citizens has not reached it. The Roman people is now no longer able to bear (I have not to say the violence, the arms, and the war, but) the mourning, the tears, and the complaints, of all foreign nations. In a case of this sort, in speaking of customs of this sort, if he who is brought before the tribunal, when he is detected in evident crimes, says that others have also done the same, he will not want examples; but the republic will want safety, if, by the precedents of wicked men, wicked men are to be delivered from trial and from danger.

Do you approve of the manners of men at present? Do you approve of men's behaving themselves in magistracies as they do? Do you approve, finally, of our allies being treated as you see that they have been treated all this time? Why am I forced to take all this trouble? Why are you all sitting here? Why do you not rise up and depart before I have got halfway through my speech? Do you wish to lay open at all the audacity and licentiousness of these men? Give up doubting whether it is more useful, because there are so many wicked men, to spare one, or by the punishment of one wicked man, to check the wickedness of many.