In C. Verrem

And how great a regret this Sappho which he carried off left behind her, can scarcely be told; for in the first place it was admirably made, and, besides, it had a very noble Greek epigram engraved upon the pedestal; and would not that learned man, that Grecian, who is such an acute judge of these matters, who is the only man who understands them, if he had understood one letter of Greek, have taken that away too? for now, because it is engraved on an empty pedestal, it both declares what was once, on the pedestal, and proves that it has been taken away. What shall I say more? Did you not take away the statue of Paean from out of the temple of Aesculapius, beautifully made, sacred, and holy as it was? a statue which all men went to see for its beauty, and worshipped for its sacred character. What more? was not the statue of Aristaeus openly taken away by your command out of the temple of Bacchus?

What more? did you not take away out of the temple of Jupiterthat most holy statue of Jupiter Imperator, which the Greeks call *)/ourios, most beautifully made? What next? did you hesitate to take away out of the temple of Libera, that most exquisite bust of Parian marble, which we used to go to see? And that Paean used to be worshipped among that people together with Aesculapius, with anniversary sacrifices. Aristaeus, who being, as the Greeks report, the son of Bacchus, is said to have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple.

But how great do you suppose was the honour paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own temple? You may collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great was the religious reverence attached to that statue of the same appearance and form which Flaminius brought out of Macedonia, and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were said to be in the whole world three statues of Jupiter Imperator, of the same class, all beautifully made: one was that one from Macedonia, which we have seen in the Capitol; a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the mouth of the Euxine Sea; the third was that which was at Syracuse, till Verres came as praetor. Flaminius removed the first from its habitation, but only to place it in the Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth.

But as to the one that is at the entrance of the Euxine, that, though so many wars have proceeded from the shores of that sea, and though so many have been poured into Pontus, has still remained inviolate and untouched to this day. This third one, which was at Syracuse, which Marcus Marcellus, when in arms and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the religion of the place, which both the citizens of, and settlers in Syracusewere used to worship, and strangers not only visited, but often venerated, Caius Verres took away from the temple of Jupiter.

To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of carrying it away. At present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on that account pass over—how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every sacred temple at Syracuse;

and therefore, O judges, those men who are accustomed to take strangers about to all those things which are worth going to see, and to show them every separate thing, whom they call mystagogi, (or cicerones,) now have their description of things reversed; for as they formerly used to show what there was in every place, so now they show what has been taken from every place. What do you think, then? Do you think that those men are affected with but a moderate indignation? Not so, O judges: in the first place, because all men are influenced by religious feeling, and think that their paternal gods, whom they have received from their ancestors, are to be carefully worshipped and retained by themselves; and secondly, because this sort of ornament, these works and specimens of art, these statues and paintings, delight men of Greek extraction to an excessive degree; therefore by their complaints we can understand that these things appear most bitter to those men, which perhaps may seem trifling and contemptible to us. Believe me, O judges, although I am aware to a certainty that you yourselves hear the same things, that though both our allies and foreign nations have during these past years sustained many calamities and injuries, yet men of Greek extraction have not been, and are not, more indignant at any than at this ruthless plundering of their temples and altars.

Although that man may say that he bought these things, as he is accustomed to say, yet, believe me in this, O judges,—no city in all Asiaor in all Greecehas ever sold one statue, one picture, or one decoration of the city, of its own free will to anybody. Unless, perchance, you suppose that, after strict judicial decisions had ceased to take place at Rome, the Greeks then began to sell these things, which they not only did not sell when there were courts of justice open, but which they even used to buy up; or unless you think that Lucius Crassus, Quintus Scaevola, Caius Claudius, most, powerful men, whose most splendid aedileships we have seen had no dealings in those sort of matters with the Greeks, but that those men had such dealings who became aediles after the destruction of the courts of justice.

Know also that that false presence of purchase was more bitter to the cities than if any one were privately to filch things, or boldly to steal them and carry them off. For they think it the most excessive baseness, that it should be entered on the public records that the city was induced by a price, and by a small price too, to sell and alienate those things which it had received from men of old. In truth, the Greeks delight to a marvellous degree in those things, which we despise. And therefore our ancestors willingly allowed those things to remain in numbers among the allies, in order that they might be as splendid and as flourishing as possible under our dominion; and among those nations whom they rendered taxable or tributary, [*](The Latin is quos vectigales aut stipendiarius fuerant—“Stipendiariiand vectigalesare thus distinguished: Stipendiariiare those who pay annually a fixed sum as tribute; vectigales, those who pay in proportion to their property or income.”—Riddle's Dict. v. Stipendiarius.)still they left these things, in order that they who take delight in those things which to us seem insignificant, might have them as pleasures and consolations in slavery.

What do you think that the Rhegians, who now are Roman citizens, would take to allow that marble Venus to be taken from them? What would the Tarentines take to lose the Europa sitting on the Bull? or the Satyr which they have in the temple of Vesta? or their other monuments? What would the Thespians take to lose the statue of Cupid, the only object for which any one ever goes to see Thespiae? What would the men of Cnidostake for their marble Venus? or the Coans for their picture of her? or the Ephesians for Alexander? the men of Cyzicusfor their Ajax or Medea? What would the Rhodians take for Ialysus? the Athenians for their marble Bacchus, or their picture of Paralus, or their brazen Heifer, the work of Myron? It would be a long business and an unnecessary one, to mention what is worth going to see among all the different nations in all Asiaand Greece; but that is the reason why I am enumerating these things, because I wish you to consider that an incredible indignation must be the feeling of those men from whose cities these things are carried away.

And to say nothing of other nations, judge of the Syracusans themselves. For when I went to Syracuse, I originally believed what I had heard at Romefrom that man's friends, that the city of Syracuse, on account of the inheritance of Heraclius, was no less friendly to him than the city of the Mamertines, because of their participation in all his booty and robberies. And at the same time I was afraid that, owing to the influence of the high-born and beautiful women at whose will he had directed all the measures of his praetorship for three years, and of the men to whom they were married, I should be opposed not only by an excessive lenity, but even by a feeling of liberality towards that man, if I were to seek for any evidence out of the public records of the Syracusans.

Therefore when at SyracuseI was chiefly with Roman citizens; I copied out their papers; I inquired into their injuries. As I was a long time occupied by that business, in order to rest a little and to give my mind a respite from care, I returned to those fine documents of Carpinatius; in which, in company with some of the most honourable knights of the body of Roman settlers, I unraveled the case of those Verrutii, whom I have mentioned before, but I expected no aid at all, either publicly or privately, from the Syracusans, nor had I any idea of asking for any. While I was doing this, on a sudden Heraclius came to me, who was in office at Syracuse, a man of high birth, who had been priest of Jupiter, which is the highest honour among the Syracusans; he requests of me and of my brother, if we have no objection, to go to their senate; that they were at that moment assembled in full numbers in the senate-house, and he said that he made this request to us to attend by command of the senate.

At first we were in doubt what to do; but afterwards it soon occurred to us that we ought not to shun that assembly or that place. Therefore we came to the senate-house; they all rise at our entry to do us honour. We sat down at the request of the magistrates. Diodorus the son of Timarchides, who was the first man in that body both in influence and in age, and also as it seemed to me in experience and knowledge of business, began to speak; and the first sentence of his speech was to this effect—That the senate and people of Syracusewere grieved and indignant, that, though in all the other cities of SicilyI had informed the senate and people of what I proposed for their advantage or for their safety, and though I had received from them all commissions, deputies, letters and evidence, yet in that city I had done nothing of that sort. I answered, that deputies from the Syracusans had not been present at Romein that assembly of the Sicilians when my assistance was entreated by the common resolution of all the deputations, and when the cause of the whole of Sicilywas entrusted to me; and that I could not ask that any decree should be passed against Caius Verres in that senate-house in which I saw a gilt statue of Caius Verres.

And after I said that, such a groaning ensued at the sight and mention of the statue, that it appeared to have been placed in the senate-house as a monument of his wickednesses and not of his services. Then every one for himself, as fast as each could manage to speak, began to give me information of those things which I have just now mentioned; to tell me that the city was plundered—the temples stripped of their treasures—that of the inheritance of Heraclius, which he had adjudged to the men of the palaestra, he had taken by far the greatest share himself; and indeed, that they could not expect that he should care for the men of the palaestra, when he had taken away even the god who was the inventor of oil; that that statue had neither been made at the public expense, nor erected by public authority, but that those men who had been the sharers in the plunder of the inheritance of Heraclius, had had it made and placed where it was; and that those same men had been the deputies at Rome, who had been his assistants in dishonesty, his partners in his thefts and the witnesses of his debaucheries; and that therefore I ought the less to wonder if they were wanting to the unanimity of the deputies and to the safety of Sicily.

When I perceived that their indignation at that man's injuries was not only not less, but almost greater than that of the rest of the Sicilians, then I explained my own intentions to them, and my whole plan and system with reference to the whole of the business which I had undertaken; then I exhorted them not to be wanting to the common cause and the common safety, and to rescind that panegyric which they had voted a few days before, being compelled, a, they said, by violence and fear. Accordingly, O judges, the Syracusans, that man's clients and friends, do this. First of all, they produce to me the public documents which they had carefully stored up in the most sacred part of the treasury; in which they show me that everything, which I have said had been taken away, was entered, and even more things than I was able to mention. And they were entered in this way. “What had been taken out of the temple of Minerva .. This,... and that.” “What was missing out of the temple of Jupiter.” “What was missing out of the temple of Bacchus.” As each individual had had the charge of protecting and preserving those things, so it was entered; that each, when according to law he gave in his accounts, being bound to give up what he had received, had begged that he might be pardoned for the absence of these things and that all had accordingly been released from liability on that account, and that it was kept secret; all which documents I took care to have sealed up with the public seal and brought away.

But concerning the public panegyric on him this explanation was given: that at first, when the letters arrived from Verres about the panegyric, a little while before my arrival, nothing had been decreed; and after that, when some of his friends urged them that it ought to be decreed, they were rejected with the greatest outcry and the bitterest reproaches; but when I was on the point of arriving, then he who at that time was the chief governor had commanded them to decree it, and that it had been decreed in such a manner that the panegyric did him more damage than it could have done him good. So now, judges, do you receive the truth of that matter from me just as it was shown to me by them.

It is a custom at Syracuse, that, if a motion on any subject is brought before the senate, whoever wishes, gives his opinion on it. No one is asked by name for his sentiments; nevertheless, those are accustomed to speak first of their own accord, and naturally, according as they are superior in honour or in age; and that precedence is yielded to them by the rest; but, if at any time all are silent, then they are compelled to speak by lot. This was the custom when the motion was made respecting the panegyric of Verres. On which subject at first great numbers speak, in order to delay coming to any vote, and interpose this objection, that formerly, when they had heard that there was a prosecution instituted against Sextus Peducaeus, who had deserved admirably well of that city and of the whole province, and when, in return for his numerous and important services, they wished to vote a panegyric on him, they had been prohibited from doing so by Caius Verres; and that it would be an unjust thing, although Peducaeus had now no need of their praise, still not to vote that which at one time they had been eager to vote, before decreeing what they would only decree from compulsion.

All shout in assent, and say approvingly that that is what ought to be done. So the question about Peducaeus is put to the senate. Each man gave his opinion in order, according as he had precedence in age and honour. You may learn this from the resolution itself; for the opinions delivered by the chief men are generally recorded. Read— [The list of speeches made on the subject of Sextus Peducaeus is read.] It says who were the chief supporters of the motion. The vote is carried. Then the question about Verres is put. Tell me, I pray, what happened. [The list of speeches made on the subject of Caius Verres....] Well what comes next? [As no one rose, and no one delivered his opinion....] What is this? [They proceed by lot.] Why was this? Was no one a willing praiser of your praetorship, or a willing defender of you from danger, especially when by being so he might have gained favour with the praetor? No one. Those very men who used to feast with you, your advisers and accomplices, did not venture to utter a word. In that very senate-house in which a statue of yourself and a naked statue of your son were standing, was there no one whom even your naked son in a province stripped naked could move to compassion?

Moreover they inform me also of this, that they had passed the vote of panegyric in such a form that all men might see that it was not a panegyric, but rather a satire, to remind every one of his shameful and disastrous praetorship. For in truth it was drawn up in these words. “Because he had scourged no one.” From which you are to understand, that he had caused most noble and innocent men to be executed. “Because he had administered the affairs of the province with vigilance,” when all his vigils were well known to have been devoted to debauchery and adultery; moreover, there was this clause added, which the defendant could never venture to produce, and the accuser would never cease to dwell upon; “Because Verres had kept all pirates at a distance from the island of Sicily;” men who in his time had entered even into the “island” of Syracuse.

And after I had received this information from them, I departed from the senate-house with my brother, in order that they might decree what they chose. Immediately they pass a decree. First, “That my brother Lucius should be connected with the city by ties of hospitably;” because he had shown the same goodwill to the Syracusans that I had always felt myself. That they not only wrote at that time, but also had engraved on brazen tablets and presented to us. Truly very fond of you are your Syracusans whom you are always talking of, who think it quite a sufficient reason for forming an intimate connection with your accuser, that he is going to be your accuser, and that he has come among them for the purpose of prosecuting inquiries against you. After that, a decree is passed, not with any difference of opinion, but almost unanimously, “That the panegyric which had been decreed to Caius Verres, be rescinded.”

But, when not only the vote had been come to, but when it had even been drawn up in due form and entered in the records, an appeal is made to the praetor. But who makes this appeal? Any magistrate? No. Any senator? Not even that. Any Syracusan? Far from it. Who, then, appeals to the praetor? The man who had been Verres's quaestor, Caesetius. Oh, the ridiculous business! Oh, the deserted man! O man despaired of and abandoned by the Sicilian magistracy! In order to prevent the Sicilians passing a resolution of the senate, or from obtaining their rights according to their own customs and their own laws, an appeal is made to the praetor, not by any friend of his, not by any connection, not, in short, by any Sicilian, but by his own quaestor. Who saw this? Who heard it? That just and wise praetor orders the senate to be adjourned. A great multitude flocks to me. First of all, the senators cry out that their rights are being taken away; that their liberty is being taken away. The people praise the senate and thank them. The Roman citizens do not leave me. And on that day I had no harder task, than with all my exertions to prevent violent hands being laid on the man who made that appeal.