In C. Verrem

In our most beautiful and highly decorated city what statue, or what painting is there, which has not been taken and brought away from conquered enemies? But the villas of those men are adorned and filled with numerous and most beautiful spoils of our most faithful allies. Where do you think is the wealth of foreign nations, which they are all now deprived of, when you see Athens, Pergamos, Cyzicus, Miletus, Chios, Samos, all Asia in short, and Achaia, and Greece, and Sicily, now all contained in a few villas? But all these things, as I was saying, your allies abandon and are indifferent to now. They took care by their own services and loyalty not to be deprived of their property by the public authority of the Roman people; though they were unable to resist the covetousness of a few individuals, yet they could in some degree satiate it; but now not only as all their power of resisting taken away, but also all their means also of supplying such demands. Therefore they do not care about their property; they do not seek to recover their money, though that is nominally the subject of this prosecution; that they abandon and are indifferent to;—in this dress in which you see them they now fly to you.

Behold, behold, O judges, the miserable and squalid condition of our allies. Sthenius, the Thermitan, whom you see here, with this uncombed hair and mourning robe, though his whole house has been stripped of everything, makes no mention of your robberies, O Verres; he claims to recover his own safety from you, nothing more. For you, by your lust and wickedness, have removed him entirely from his country, in which he flourished as a leading man, illustrious for his many virtues and distinguished services. This man Dexio, whom you see now present, demands of you, not the public treasures of which you stripped Tyndaris, nor the wealth of which you robbed him as a private individual, but, wretched that he is, he demands of you his most virtuous, his most innocent, his only son. He does not want to carry back home a sum of money obtained from you as damages, but he seeks out of your calamity some consolation for the ashes and bones of his son. This other man here, the aged Eubulida, has not, at the close of life, undertaken such fatigue and so long a journey, to recover any of his property, but to see you condemned with the same eyes that beheld the bleeding neck of his own son.

If it had not been for Lucius Metellus, O judges, the mothers of those men, their wives and sisters, were on their way hither; and one of them, when I arrived at Heraclea late at night, came to meet me with all the matrons of that city, and with many torches; and so, styling me her saviour, calling you her executioner, uttering in an imploring manner the name of her son, she fell down, wretched as she was, at my feet, as if I were able to raise her son from the shades below. In the other cities also the aged mothers, and even the little children of those miserable men did the same thing; while the helpless age of each class appeared especially to stand in need of my labour and diligence, of your good faith and pity.

Therefore, O judges, this complaint was brought to me by Sicily most especially and beyond all other complaints. I have undertaken this task, induced by the tears of others, not by any desire of my own for glory; in order that false condemnation, and imprisonment, and chains, and axes, and the torture of our allies, and the execution of innocent men, and last of all, that the bodies of the lifeless dead, and the agony of living parents and relations, may not he a source of profit to our magistrates. If, by that man's condemnation obtained through your good faith and strict justice, O judges, I remove this fear from Sicily, I shall think enough has been done in discharge of my duty, and enough to satisfy their wishes who have entreated this assistance from me.

Wherefore, if by any chance you find one who attempts to defend him from this accusation in the matter of the fleet, let him defend him thus; let him leave out those common topics which have nothing to do with the business—that I am attributing to him blame which belongs to fortune; that I am imputing to him disaster as a crime; that I am accusing him of the loss of a fleet, when, in the uncertain risks of war which are common to both sides, many gallant men have often met with disasters both by land and sea. I am imputing to you nothing in which fortune was concerned; you have no pretext for bringing up the disasters of others; you have nothing to do with collecting instances of the misfortunes of many others. I say the ships were dismantled; I say the rowers and sailors were discharged; I say the rest had been living on the roots of wild palms; that a Sicilian was appointed to command a fleet of the Roman people; a Syracusan to command our allies and friends; I say that, all that time, and for many preceding days, you were spending your time in drunken revels on the sea-shore with your concubines; and I produce my informants and witnesses, who prove all these charges.

Do I seem to be insulting you in your calamity; to be cutting you off from your legitimate excuse of blaming fortune? Do I appear to be attacking and reproaching you for the ordinary chances of war? Although the men who are indeed accustomed to object to the results of fortune being made a charge against them, are those who have committed themselves to her, and have encountered her perils and vicissitudes. But in that disaster of yours, fortune had no share at all. For men are accustomed to try the fortune of war, and to encounter danger in battles, not in banquets. But in that disaster of yours we cannot say that Mars had any share; we may say that Venus had. But if it is not right that the disasters of fortune should be imputed to you, why did you not allow her some weight in furnishing excuses and defence for those innocent men?

You must also deprive yourself of the argument, that you are now accused and held up to odium by me, for having punished and executed men according to the custom of our ancestors by accusation does not turn on any one's punishment. I do not say that no one ought to have been put to death; I do not say that all fear is to be removed from military service, severity from command, or punishment from guilt. I confess that there are many precedents for severe and terrible punishments inflicted not only on our allies, but even on our citizens and soldiers. You may therefore omit all such topics as these. I prove that the fault was not in the naval captains, but in you. I accuse you of having discharged the soldiers and rowers for a bribe. The rest of the naval captains say the came. The confederate city of the Netians bears public testimony to the truth of this charge. The cities of Herbita, of Amestras, of Enna, of Agyrium, of Tyndaris, and the Ionians, all give their public testimony to the same effect. Last of all, your own witness, your own commander, your own host, Cleomenes, says this,—that he had landed on the coast in order to collect soldiers from Pachynum, where there was a garrison of troops, in order to put them on board the fleet; which he certainly would not have done if the ships had had their complement. For the system of ships when fully equipped and fully manned is such that you have no room, I will not say for many more, but for even one single man more.

I say, moreover, that those very sailors who were left, were worn out and disabled by famine, and by a want of every necessary. I say, that either all were free from blame, or that if blame must be attributable to some one, the greatest blame must be due to him who had the best ship, the largest crew, and the chief command; or, that if all were to blame, Cleomenes ought not to have been a spectator of the death and torture of those men. I say, besides, that in those executions, to allow of that traffic in tears, of that bargaining for an effective wound and a deadly blow, of that bargaining for the funeral and sepulture of the victims, was impiety.

Wherefore, if you will make me any answer at all, say this,—that the fleet was properly equipped and fully manned; that no fighting-men were absent, that no bench was without its rower; that ample corn was supplied to the rowers; that the naval captains are liars; that all those honourable cities are liars; that all Sicily is a liar;—that you were betrayed by Cleomenes, when he said that he had landed on the coast to get soldiers from Pachynum; that it was courage, and not troops that he needed;—that Cleomenes, while fighting most gallantly, was abandoned and deserted by these men, and that no money was paid to any one for leave to bury the dead.—If you say this, you shall be convicted of falsehood; if you say anything else, you will not be refuting what has been stated by me.