In C. Verrem

I wish he were able to say even this, that that affair does not concern him; that the whole business relating to corn was managed by the quaestors. Even that he cannot say, because his own letters are read which were sent to the cities, written on the subject of the three denarii. What then is his defence? “I have done what you accuse me of; I have extorted immense sums on the plea of the granary; but it was lawful for me to do so, and it will be lawful for you if you take care.” A dangerous thing for the provinces for any classes of injury to be established by judicial decision to a dangerous thing for our order, for the Roman people to think that these men, who themselves are subject to the laws, cannot defend the laws with strictness when they are judges. And while that man was praetor, O judges, there was not only no limit to his valuing corn, but there was none either to his demands of corn. Nor did he command that only to be supplied that was due, but as much as was advantageous for himself. I will put before you the sum total of all the corn commanded to be furnished for the granary, as collected out of the public documents, and the testimonies of the cities You will find, O judges, that man commanded the cities to supply five times as much as it was lawful for him to take for the granary. What can be added to this impudence, if he both valued it at such a price that men could not endure it, and also commanded so much more to be supplied than was permitted to him by the laws to require?

Wherefore, now that you have heard the whole business of the corn, O judges, you can easily see that Sicily, that most productive and most desirable province, has been lost to the Roman people, unless you recover it by your condemnation of that man. For what is Sicily, if you take away the cultivation of its land, and if you extinguish the multitude and the very name of the cultivators of the soil? For what can there be left of disaster which has not come to those unhappy cultivators, with every circumstance of injury and insult? They were liable, indeed, to pay tenths, but they have scarcely had a tenth left for themselves. When money has been due to them, it has not been paid; though the senate intended them to supply corn for the granary according to a very equitable valuation, they have been compelled to sell even the tools with which they cultivate their lands.

I have already said, O judges, that even if you remove all these injuries, still that the occupation of cultivating land is maintained owing to the hopes and a certain sort of pleasure which it gives, rather than because of the profit and emolument arising from it. In truth every year constant labour and constant expense is incurred in the hope of a result which is casual and uncertain. Moreover, the crop does not command a high price, except in a disastrous harvest. But if there has been a great abundance of crops gathered, then there is cheapness in selling them. So that you may see that the corn must be badly sold if it is got in well, or else that the crop must be bad if you get a good price for it. And the whole business of agriculture is such, that it is regulated not by reason or by industry, but by those most uncertain things,—the weather and the winds. When from agriculture one tenth is extracted by law and on fair terms,—when a second is levied by a new regulation, on account of the necessity of procuring a sufficient supply for ourselves,—when, besides, corn is purchased every year by public authority,—and when, after all that, more still is ordered by magistrates and lieutenants to be supplied for the granary,—what, or how much is there after all this of his own crop which the cultivator or owner can have at his own disposal, for his own profit?

And if all this is endured,—if by their care, and expense, and labour, they consult your advantage and that of the Roman people rather than themselves and their own profit,—still, ought they also to bear these new edicts and commands of the praetors, and the imperiousness of Apronius, and the robberies and rapine of the slaves of Venus? Ought they also to supply corn which ought to be purchased of them without getting any payment for it? Ought they also, though they are willing to supply corn for the granary without payment, to be forced to pay large sums too? Ought they also to endure all these injures and all these losses accompanied with the greatest insult and contumely? Therefore, O judges, those things which they have not at all been able to bear, they have not borne. You know that over the whole of Sicily the allotments of land are deserted and abandoned by their owners. Nor is there anything else to be gained by this trial, except that our most ancient and faithful allies, the Sicilians, Roman settlers, and the cultivators of the soil, owing to your strictness and your care, may return to their farms and to their homes under my guidance and through my instrumentality.

I come now to what Verres himself calls his passion what his friends call his disease, his madness; what the Sicilians call his rapine; what I am to call it, I know not. I will state the whole affair to you, and do you consider it according to its own importance and not by the importance of its name. First of all, O judges, suffer me to make you acquainted with the description of this conduct of his; and then, perhaps, you will not be very much puzzled to know by what name to call it. I say that in all Sicily, in all that wealthy and ancient province, that in that number of towns and families of such exceeding riches, there was no silver vessel, no Corinthian or Delian plate, no jewel or pearl, nothing made of gold or ivory, no statue of marble or brass or ivory, no picture whether painted or embroidered, that he did not seek out, that he did not inspect, that, if he liked it, he did not take away.

I seem to be making a very extensive charge; listen now to the manner in which I make it. For I am not embracing everything in one charge for the sake of making an impression, or of exaggerating his guilt. When I say that he left nothing whatever of the sort in the whole province, know that I am speaking according to the strict meaning of the words, and not in the spirit of an accuser. I will speak even more plainly; I will say that he has left nothing in any one's house, nothing even in the towns, nothing in public places, not even in the temples, nothing in the possession of any Sicilian, nothing in the possession of any Roman citizen; that he has left nothing, in short, which either came before his eyes or was suggested to his mind, whether private property or public, or profane or sacred, in all Sicily.

Where then shall I begin rather than with that city which was above all others in your affection, and which was your chosen place of enjoyment? or with what class of men rather than with your flatterers? For by that means it will be the more easily seen how you behaved among those men who hate you, who accuse you, who will not let you rest, when you are proved to have plundered among the Mamertines, who are your friends, in the most infamous manner. Caius Heius is a Mamertine—all men will easily grant me this who have ever been to Messana; the most accomplished man in every point of view in all that city. His house is the very best in all Messana,—most thoroughly known, most constantly open, most especially hospitable to all our fellow-citizens. That house before the arrival of Verres was so splendidly adorned, as to be an ornament even to the city. For Messanaitself, which is admirable on account of its situation, its fortifications, and its harbour, is very empty and bare of those things in which Verres delights.

There was in the house of Heius a private chapel of great sacredness, handed down to him from his ancestors, very ancient; in which he had four very beautiful statues, made with the greatest skill, and of very high character; calculated not only to delight Verres, that clever and accomplished man, but even any one of us whom he calls the mob:—one, a statue of Cupid, in marble, a work of Praxiteles; for in truth, while I have been inquiring into that man's conduct, I have learnt the names of the workmen; it was the same workman, as I imagine, who made that celebrated Cupid of the same figure as this which is at Thespiae, on account of which people go to see Thespiae, for there is no other reason for going to see it; and therefore that great man Lucius Mummius, when he carried away from that town the statues of the Muses which are now before the temple of Good Fortune, and the other statues which were not consecrated, did not touch this marble Cupid, because it had been consecrated.