In C. Verrem

What, if I prove, O judges, that these two treaties with the two states were of such a nature, that in the case of the people of Tauromenium it was expressly provided for and guarded against in the treaty, “that they were not bound to furnish a vessel;” but that in the case of the Mamertines it was set down and written in the treaty itself, “that they were bound to furnish a vessel;” but that Verres, in opposition to both treaties, compelled the Tauromenians to furnish one, and excused the Mamertines? Can it, then, be doubtful to any one that, while Verres was praetor, that merchant-vessel was a greater assistance to the Mamertines than the treaty was to the Tauromenians? Let the treaties be read. [The treaties of the Mamertines and the Tauromenians with the Roman people are read.] By that act therefore, of kindness, as you call it—of corruption and dishonesty, as the case itself proves,—you detracted from the majesty of the republic, you diminished the reinforcements of the Roman people—you diminished their resources, acquired by the valour and wisdom of their ancestors; you destroyed their imperial rights, and the terms on which the allies became such, and all recollection of the treaty. They who by the express words of the treaty were bound to send at their own expense and risk a ship properly armed and equipped with everything necessary, even as far as the ocean if we ordered them to do so, those men bought from you for money a release from the terms of the treaty, and a release from the lights of sovereignty which we had over them, so as to be excused from even sailing in that narrow sea before their own houses and homes, from defending their own walls and harbours.

How much labour, and trouble, and money, do you suppose the Mamertines at the time of making this treaty would willingly have devoted to the object of preventing this bireme from being mentioned in it, if they could by any possibility have obtained such a favour from our ancestors? For when this heavy burden was imposed on the city, there was contained somehow or other in that treaty of alliance some badge, as it were, of slavery. That which then, when their services were recent, before the matter was finally determined, when the Roman people were in no difficulties, they could not obtain by treaty from our ancestors; that now, when they have done us no new service, after so many years,—now that it has been enforced every year by our right of sovereignty, and has been invariably observed—now, I say, when we are in great want of vessels, they have obtained from Caius Verres by bribery. Oh! but this is all that they have gained, exemption from furnishing a ship! Have the Mamertines for the last three years furnished one sailor, one soldier, to serve either in fleet or in garrison, all the time you have been praetor?

Lastly, when according to the resolution of the senate, and also according to the Terentian and Cassian law, corn was to be bought in equal proportions from all the cities of Sicily, from that light burden also, which they shared too with all the other cities, you relieved the Mamertines.—You will say that the Mamertines do not owe corn. How do not owe corn? Do you mean to say they were not bound to sell us corn? For this corn was not a contribution to be exacted, but a supply to be purchased. By your permission, then, by your interpretation of the treaty, the Mamertines were not bound to assist the Roman people, even by supplying their markets, and furnishing them with provisions.

And what city, then, was bound to supply these things? As for those who cultivate the public domains, it is settled what they are bound to furnish by the Censorian Law. Why did you exact from them anything besides that in another class of contribution? What? Do those who are liable to the payment of tenths owe anything more than a single tenth, according to the Law of Hiero? Why have you fixed in their case also how much corn they were to be bound to sell to us, that being another description of contribution? Those who are exempt undoubtedly owe nothing. But you not only exacted this from them, but even by way of making them give more than they possibly could, you added to their burden those sixty thousand modii from which you excused the Mamertines. And this is not what I say, that this was not rightly exacted from the others; what I say is, that it was a scandalous thing to excuse the Mamertines, whose case was exactly the same, and from whom all previous praetors had exacted the same contribution that they did from the rest, and had paid them for it according to the resolution of the senate, and the law. And in order to drive in this indulgence with a big nail, as one may say, he takes cognisance of the cause of the Mamertines while sitting on the bench with his assessors, and pronounces judgment, that he, according to the decision of the bench, does not demand any corn from the Mamertines.

Listen to the decree of the mercenary praetor from his own note-book; and take notice how great his gravity is in framing a degree, how great his dignity is in pronouncing it. Read the next memorandum of his decrees. [The decree, extracted from Verres's note-book, is read.] He says, “that he does this willingly,” and therefore he makes the entry in his book. What then? suppose you had not used this word “willingly,” should we, forsooth, have supposed that you made this profit unwillingly? “And by the advice of the bench;” you have heard a fair list of the assessors read to you, O judges Did it seem to you, when you heard their names, that a list of assessors to a praetor was being read, or a roll of the troop and company of a most infamous bandit?

Here are interpreters of treaties, settlers of the terms of alliances, authorities as to religious obligations! Corn was never bought in Sicily by public order, without the Mamertines being ordered to furnish their just proportion, till that fellow appointed this select and admirable bench of his, in order to get money from them, and to act up to his invariable character. Therefore, that decree had just the weight that the authority of that man ought to have, who sold a decree to those men from whom it had been his duty to buy corn. For Lucius Metellus, the moment he arrived as his successor, required corn of the Mamertines, according to the regulations and appointment of Caius Sacerdos and Sextus Peducaeus.

Then the Mamertines perceived that they could not longer retain the privilege which they had bought from its unprincipled author. Come now, you, who were desirous to be thought such a scrupulous interpreter of treaties, tell us why you compelled the Tauromenians and the Netians to furnish corn; for both of those are confederate cities. And the Netians were not wanting to themselves, for as soon as you pronounced your decision that you willingly excused the Mamertines, they came before you, and proved to you that their case under the treaty was exactly the same. You could not make a different decree in a case which was identical with the other. You pronounce that the Netians are not bound to furnish corn, and still you exact it from them. Give me the papers of this same praetor referring to his decrees, and to the corn that was ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat that was bought. [The papers of the praetor referring to the decrees, to the corn ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat purchased, are read.] In a case of such enormous and shameful inconsistency, what can we suspect, O judges, rather than that which is inevitable; either that money was not given to him by the Netians when he demanded it, or else that the Mamertines were given to understand that they had disposed of all their bribes and presents very advantageously, when others, whose case was identical with theirs, could not obtain the same privileges?

Will he here again venture to make mention to me of the panegyric of the Mamertines? for who is there of you, O judges, who is not aware how many weapons that furnishes against him? In the first place, as in courts of justice it is more respectable for a man who cannot produce ten witnesses to speak to his character, to produce none at all, than not to complete the number made as it were legitimate by usage; so there are a great many cities in Sicily over which you were governor for three years; almost all the rest accuse you; a few insignificant ones, kept back by fear, say nothing; one speaks in your favour. What does all this show except that you are aware how advantageous genuine evidence to a person's character is; but that, nevertheless, your administration of the province was such that you are forced of necessity to do without that advantage?

In the next place, as I said before on another occasion, what sort of a panegyric is that, when the chief men of the deputation commissioned to utter it, stated, both that a ship had been built for you at the public expense, and also that they themselves had been plundered and pillaged by you in respect of their private property? Lastly, what else is it that these people do, when they are the only people in all Sicily who praise you, beyond proving to us that you gave them everything of which you robbed our republic? What colony is there in Italy in possession of such privileges, what municipality is there enjoying such immunities, as to have had for all these years such a profitable exemption from all burdens, as the city of the Mamertines has had for three years? They alone have not given what they were bound to give according to the treaties; they alone, as long as that man was praetor, enjoyed immunity from all burdens; they alone under that man's authority lived in such a condition that they gave nothing to the Roman people, and refused nothing to Verres.

But to return to the fleet, from which topic I have been digressing; you accepted a ship from the Mamertines contrary to the laws; you granted them relaxation contrary to the treaties; so that you behaved like a rogue twice in the case of one city, as you both granted indulgences which you had no right to grant, and accepted what it was not lawful for you to accept. You ought to have exacted a ship from them fit to sail against robbers, not to carry off the produce of your robberies; one which might have defended the province from being despoiled, not one that was to bear away the fresh spoils of the province. The Mamertines gave you both a city to which you might carry all the plunder you amassed from all quarters, and also a ship, in which you might take it away. That town was a receptacle for your plunder, those men were the witnesses to and guardians of your plunder; they supplied to you both a repository for your thefts, and a conveyance for them. In consequence, even when you had lost a fleet by your own avarice and worthlessness, you did not venture to require a ship of the Mamertines, at a time when our want of ships was so excessive, and the distress of the province so great, that, even if it had been necessary to beg as supplicants for a ship, they would have granted it. But all your power either of commanding a vessel to be furnished, or of begging for one, was crippled, not by the bireme supplied to the Roman people, but by that splendid merchant vessel given to the praetor. That was the price of your authority, of the reinforcement they were bound to supply, of exemption from the requirements of law, and usage, and of the treaty.

You have now the case of the trusty assistance of one city lost to us and sold. Now listen to a new system of robbery first invented by Verres. Each city was always accustomed to give to its admiral the money necessary for the expense of the fleet, for provisions, for pay, and for all such things. The admiral did not dare to give the sailors any ground for accusing him, and was, besides, bound to render an account of the money to his fellow-citizens. In the whole business all the trouble and all the risk was his. This, I say, was the regular course not only in Sicily, but in every province, even in the case of the pay and expense of the Latin allies, at the time when we were accustomed to employ their assistance. Verres was the first man, ever since our dominion was established, who ordered that all that money should be paid to him by the cities, in order that whoever he chose to appoint might have the handling of that money.

Who can doubt why you were the first man to change the ancient custom of all your predecessors, to disregard the great advantage of having the money pass through the hands of others, and to undertake a work of such difficulty, so liable to accusation,—a task of such delicacy, inseparable from suspicion? After that, other sources of gain are established arising from this one article of the navy; just listen to their number, O judges;—he receives money from the cities to excuse them from furnishing sailors; the sailors that are furnished he releases for a bribe; he makes a profit of the whole of thee pay of those who are thus released; he does not pay the rest all that he ought to pay. All this you shall have proved to you by the evidence of the cities. Read the evidence of the cities. [The evidence of the cities is read.]

Did you ever hear of such a man? Did you ever hear, O judges, of such impudence? of such audacity? to impose on the cities the payment of a sum of money in proportion to the number of soldiers, and to fix a regular price, six hundred sesterces, for the discharge of each sailor! and as those who paid that sum were released from service for the whole summer, Verres pocketed all that he received both for their pay and for their maintenance. And by this means he made a double profit of the discharge of one person. And this most insane of men, at a time of frequent invasion of pirates, and of imminent danger to the province, did this so openly, that the pirates themselves were aware of it, and the whole province was a witness to it.

When, owing to this man's inordinate avarice, there was a fleet indeed in name in Sicily, but in reality empty ships, fit only to carry plunder for the praetor, not to strike terror into pirates; nevertheless, while Publius Caesetius and Publius Tadius were sailing about with these ten half-manned ships, they, I will not say took, but led away with them one ship, laden with the spoils of the pirates, evidently overwhelmed and sinking with the burden of its freight. That vessel was full of a number of most beautiful quilts, full of quantities of well-wrought plate, and of coined money; full of embroidered robes. This one vessel was not taken by our fleet, but was found at Megaris, a place not far from Syracuse. And when the news was brought to him, although he was lying in his tent on the shore, with a lot of women, drunk, still he roused himself, and immediately sent to the quaestor and to his own lieutenant many men to act as guards, in order that everything might be brought to him to see in an uninjured state, as soon as possible.

The vessel is brought to Syracuse. All expect that the pirates will be punished. He, as if it was not a case of pirates being taken, but of a booty being brought to him, considers all the prisoners who were old or ugly as enemies; those who had any beauty, or youth, or skill in anything, he takes away: some he distributed among his clerks, his retinue, and his son; six skillful musicians he sends to Rome as a present to some friend of his. All that night he spent in unloading the ship. No one sees the captain of the pirate vessel, who ought to have been executed. And to this very day every one believes, (how much truth there is in the belief, you also may be able to conjecture,) that Verres secretly took money of the pirates for the release of the captain of the pirates.

It is only a conjecture; but no one can be a good judge who is not influenced by such certain grounds of suspicion. You know the man, you know the custom of all men,—how gladly any one who has taken a chief of pirates or of the enemy, allows him to be seen openly by all men. But of all the body of citizens and settlers at Syracuse, I never saw one man, O judges, who said that he had seen that captain of the pirates who had been taken; though all men, as is the regular custom, flocked to the prison, asked for him, and were anxious to see him. What happened to make that man be kept so carefully out of sight, that no one was ever able to get a glimpse of him, even by accident? Though all the seafaring men at Syracuse, who had often heard of the name of that captain, who had often been alarmed by him, wished to feed their eyes on, and to gratify their minds with his torture and execution, yet no one was allowed even to see him.

One man, Publius Servilius, took more captains of pirates alive than all our commanders put together had done before. Was any one at any time denied the enjoyment of being allowed to see a captive pirate? On the contrary: wherever Servilius went he afforded every one that most delightful spectacle, of pirates taken prisoners and in chains. Therefore, people everywhere ran to meet him, so that the, assembled not only in the towns through which the pirates were led, but from all neighbouring towns also, for the purpose of seeing them. And why was it that that triumph was of all triumphs the most acceptable and the most delightful to the Roman people? Because nothing is sweeter than victory. But there is no more certain evidence of victory than to set those whom you have often been afraid of, led in chains to execution.

Why did you not act in this manner? Why was that pirate so concealed as if it were impiety to behold him? Why did you not execute him? For what object did you reserve him? Have you ever heard of any captain of pirates having been taken prisoner before, who was not executed? Tell me one original whose conduct you imitated; tell me one precedent. You kept the captain of the pirates alive in order, I suppose, to lead him in your triumph in front of your chariot. For, indeed, there was nothing wanting but for the naval triumph to be decreed to you on the occasion of a most beautiful fleet of the Roman people having been lost, and the province plundered.

Come now—you thought it better that the captain of the pirates should be kept in custody, according to a novel practice, than that he should be put to death according to universal precedent. What then is that custody? Among what people? Where is he kept? You have all heard of the Syracusan stone-quarries. Many of you are acquainted with them. It is a vast work and splendid; the work of the old kings and tyrants. The whole of it is cut out of rock excavated to a marvellous depth, and carved out by the labour of great multitudes of men. Nothing can either be made or imagined so closed against all escape, so hedged in on all sides, so safe for keeping prisoners in. Into these quarries men are commanded to be brought even from other cities in Sicily, if they are commanded by the public authorities to be kept in custody.

Because he had imprisoned there many Roman citizens who were his prisoners, and because he ordered the other pirates to be put there too, he was aware that if he committed this counterfeit captain of the pirates to the same custody, a great many men in those quarries would inquire for the real captain. And therefore he does not venture to commit the man to this best of all and safest of all places of confinement. In fact he is afraid of the whole of Syracuse. He sends the man away. Where to? Perhaps to Lilybaeum. I see; he was not then so entirely afraid of the seafaring men? By no means, O judges. To Panormus then? I understand; although indeed, since he was taken within the Syracusan district, he ought, at all events, to have been kept in prison at Syracuse, if he was not to be executed there.