In C. Verrem

Then I began to beg to be allowed to seal up and carry away the records. He spoke against me; he denied that there had been any regular resolution of the senate passed, since an appeal had been made to the praetor. He said that a copy of it ought not to be given to me. I read the act, that I was to be allowed all documents and records. He, like a crazy man as he was, urged that our laws had nothing to do with him. That intelligent praetor decided that he did not choose, as the resolution of the senate had no business ever to be ratified, to allow me to take a copy of it to Rome. Not to make a long story of it, if I had not threatened the man vigorously, if I had not read to him the provisions of the act passed in this case, and the penalties enacted by it, I should not have been allowed to have the documents. But that crazy fellow, who had declaimed against me most violently on behalf of Verres, when he found he did not succeed, in order I suppose to recover my favour, gives me a book in which all Verres's Syracusan thefts were set down, which I had already been informed of by, and had a list of from them.

Now, then, let the Mamertines praise you, who are the only men of all that large province who wish you to get off, but let them praise you on condition that Heius, who is the chief man of that deputation, is present; let them praise you on condition that they are here, ready to reply to me on those points concerning which they are questioned. And that they may not be taken by surprise on a sudden, this is what I shall ask them:—Are they bound to furnish a ship to the Roman people? They will admit it. Have they supplied it while Verres was praetor? They will say, No. Have they built an enormous transport at the public expense which they have given to Verres? They will not be able to deny it. Has Verres taken corn from them to send to the Roman people, as his predecessor did? They will say, No. What soldiers or sailors have they furnished during those three years? They will say they furnished none at all. They will not be able to deny that Messanahas been the receiver of all his plunder and all his robberies. They will confess that an immense quantity of things were exported from that city; and besides that, that this large vessel given to him by the Mamertines, departed loaded when the praetor left Sicily.

You are welcome, then, to that panegyric of the Mamertines. As for the city of Syracuse, we see that that feels towards you as it has been treated by you; and among them that infamous Verrean festival, instituted by you, has been abolished. In truth, it was a most unseemly thing for honours such as belong to the gods to be paid to the man who had carried off the images of the gods. In truth, that conduct of the Syracusans would be deservedly reproached, If, when they had struck a most celebrated and solemn day of festival games out of their annals, because on that day Syracusewas said to have been taken by Marcellus, they should, notwithstanding, celebrate a day of festival in the name of Verres; though he had plundered the Syracusans of all which that day of disaster had left them. But observe the shamelessness and arrogance of the man, O judges, who not only instituted this disgraceful and ridiculous Verrean festival out of the money of Heraclius, but who also ordered the Marcellean festival to be abolished, in order that they might every year offer sacrifices to the man by whose means they had lost the sacred festivals which they had ever observed, and had lost their national deities, and that they might take away the festival days in honour of that family by whose means they had recovered all their other festivals.

I see, O judges, that it is not doubtful to any one of you that Caius Verres most openly plundered everything in Sicily, whether sacred or profane, whether private or public property; and that, not only without the slightest scruple, but without even the very least disguise, he practiced every possible description of robbery and plunder. But a very heightened and pompous defence of him is put forward in reply to me, which I must consider very carefully beforehand, O judges, how I am to resist. For his cause is stated in this way; that by his valour, and by his singular vigilance exerted at a critical and perilous time, the province of Sicily was preserved in safety from fugitive slaves, and from the dangers of war.

What am I to do, O judges? In what way am I to shape my accusation? which way am I to turn? For to all my attacks the appellation of a gallant general is opposed, as a wall of defence. I am acquainted with the topic;—I see how Hortensius is going to boast himself. He will dilate upon the dangers of the war, the critical time of the republic, the scarcity of able generals; and that he will entreat of you, he will even claim as a right belonging to himself, that you do not suffer so great a general to be taken from the Roman people through the evidence of the Sicilians; that you do not allow his glory as a general to be overclouded by accusations of avarice.

I cannot dissemble my alarm, O judges; I am afraid that Caius Verres, on account of this amazing warlike valour of his, may escape with impunity from the consequences of all his actions. For it occurs to me, what great influence, what exceeding authority, the oration of Marcus Antonius was supposed to have had at the trial of Marcus Aquillius; who, as he was not only skillful as an orator, but bold also, when he had nearly finished his speech, took hold of Marcus Aquillius and placed him in the sight of every one, and tore his robe away from his chest, in order that the Roman people and the judges might see his scars, all received in front; and at the same time he enlarged a good deal on that wound which he had received on his head from the general of the enemy; and worked up the men who were to judge in the cause to such a pitch, that they were greatly afraid lest the man whom fortune had saved from the weapons of the enemy, and who had not spared himself, should appear to have been saved not to receive praise from the Roman people, but to endure the cruelty of the judges. Now again this same plan and method of defence is to be tried by the opposite party.

The same object is aimed at. He may be a thief, he may be a robber of temples, he may he the very chief man in every sort of vice and criminality; but he is a gallant general and a fortunate one, and he must be preserved for the critical emergencies of the republic. I will not plead against you according to strict law; I will not urge that point, which perhaps I ought to carry if I did, that as this trial is appointed to take place according to a particular formula, the point that required to be proved by you, is not what gallant exploits you may have performed in war, but how you have kept your hands from other people's money,—I will not, I say, urge this; but I will ask, as I perceive you are desirous that I should, what has been your conduct and what have been your great exploits in war.

What will you say? That in the war of the runaway slaves Sicily was delivered by your valour? It is a great praise; a very honourable boast. But in what war? For we have understood that after that war which Marcus Aquillius finished, there has been no war of fugitive slaves in Sicily. Oh! but there was in Italy. I admit that; a great and formidable war. Do you then attempt to claim for yourself any part of the credit arising from that war? Do you think that you are to share any of the glory of that victory with Marcus Crassus or Cnaeus Pompeius? I do not suppose that even this will be too great a stretch for your impudence, to venture to say something of that sort. You, forsooth, hindered any part of the forces of these slaves from passing over from Italy into Sicily? Where? When? From what part of Italy, as they never attempted to approach Sicily in any ships or vessels of any sort? For we never heard anything whatever of such an attempt; but we have heard that care was taken, by the courage and prudence of Marcus Crassus, that most valiant man, that the runaways should not make boats so as to be able to cross the strait to Messana; an attempt from which it would not have been so important to have cut them off, if there were supposed to have been any forces in Sicily able to oppose their invasion.