In C. Verrem

Cleomenes leaves the harbour in a Centuripan trireme. A Segestan vessel comes next; then a Tyndaritan ship; then one from Herbita, one from Heraclia, one from Apollonia, one from Haluntium; a fine fleet to look at, but helpless and useless because of the discharge of its fighting men, and of its rowers. That diligent praetor surveyed the fleet under his orders, as long as it was passing by his scene of profligate revelry. And he too, who for many days had not been seen, then for a short time afforded the sailors a sight of himself. The praetor of the Roman people stood in his slippers, clad in a purple cloak, and a tunic reaching down to his ankles, leaning on a prostitute on the shore. And since that time, many Sicilians and Roman citizens have often seen him in this very dress.

After the fleet had proceeded a little way, and had arrived, after five days' sailing, at Pachynum, the sailors, being compelled by hunger, gather the roots of the wild palm, of which there was a great quantity in that neighbourhood, as there is in most parts of Sicily, and support themselves in a miserable and wretched way on these. But Cleomenes, who considered himself another Verres, not only in luxury and worthlessness, but in power also, spent, like him, all his days in drinking in a tent which he had pitched on the seashore. But all of a sudden, while Cleomenes was drunk, and all his crews famishing, news is brought that a fleet of pirates is in the harbour of Odyssea; for that is the name of the place. But our fleet was in the harbour of Pachynum. But Cleomenes, because there was a garrison of troops (in name, if not in reality) in that place, fancied that, with the soldiers he drew from thence, he might make up his proper complement of sailors and rowers. The same system was found to nave been put in practice by that most covetous man with respect to the troops, that had been adopted towards the fleet, for only a few remained, and the rest had been discharged.

Cleomenes, as commander-in-chief, in a Centuripan quadrireme ordered the mast to be erected, the sails to be set, the anchor to be weighed, and made signal for the rest of the ships to follow him. This Centuripan vessel was an extraordinarily fast sailer; for, while Verres was praetor, no one had any opportunity of knowing what each ship could do with oars; although in order to do honour and to show favour to Cleomenes, there was a much smaller deficiency of rowers and soldiers in that quadrireme. The quadrireme, almost flying, had already got out of sight, while the other ships were still hard at work in their original station.

However those who were left behind displayed a good deal of courage. Although they were few in numbers, still they cried out, that whatever might be the event, they were willing to fight; and they preferred losing by the sword the little life and strength that hunger had left them. And if Cleomenes had not run away so long before, there would have been some means of making resistance, for that ship was the only one with a deck, and was large enough to have been a bulwark to the rest, and if it had been engaged in battle with the pirates, it would have looked like a city among those piratical galleys; but at that time the sailors being helpless, and deserted by their commander and prefect of the fleet, began of necessity to hold the same course that he had held.

Accordingly they all sailed towards Elorum, as Cleomenes had done; but they indeed were not so much flying from the attack of the pirates as following their commander. Then as each was last in flight, he was first in danger, for the pirates came upon the last ships first, and so the Haluntian vessel is taken first, which was commanded by an Haluntian of noble birth, Philarchus by name, whom the Locrians afterwards ransomed at the public expense from those pirates, and from whom, on his oath, you at the former pleading learnt the whole of the circumstances and their cause. The Apollonian vessel is taken next, and Anthropinus, its captain, is slain.

While all this was going on, in the meantime Cleomenes had already arrived at Elorum, already he had hastened on land from the ship, and had left the quadrireme tossing about in the surf. The rest of the captains of ships, when the commander-in-chief had landed, as they had no possible means either of resisting or of escaping by sea, ran their ships ashore at Elorum, and followed Cleomenes. Then Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, being suddenly victorious, beyond all his hopes, not through any valour of his own, but owing to the avarice and worthlessness of Verres, as soon as evening came on, ordered a most beautiful fleet belonging to the Roman people, having been driven on shore and abandoned, to be set fire to and burnt.

O what a miserable and bitter time for the province of Sicily! O what an event, calamitous and fatal to many innocent people! O what unexampled worthlessness and infamy of that man! On one and the same night, the praetor was burning with the flame of the most disgraceful love, a fleet of the Roman people with the fire of pirates. It was a stormy night when the news of this terrible disaster was brought to Syracuse—men run to the praetor's house, to which his women had conducted him back a little while before from his splendid banquet, with songs and music. Cleomenes, although it was night, still does not dare to show himself in public. He shuts himself up in his house, but his wife was not there to console her husband in his misfortunes.

But the discipline of this noble commander-in-chief was so strict in his own house, that though the event was so important, the news so serious, still no one could be admitted; no one dared either to wake him if asleep, or to address him if awake. But now, when the affair had become known to everybody, a vast multitude was collecting in every part of the city; for the arrival of the pirates was not given notice of, as had formerly been the custom, by a fire raised on a watchtower, or a hill, but both the disaster that had already been sustained, and the danger that was impending, were notified by the conflagration of the fleet itself. When the praetor was inquired for, and when it was plain that no one had told him the news, a rush of people towards his house takes place with great impetuosity and loud cries.