Secondary Orations Against Verres
by Marcus Tullius Cicero: Book 3

Hyperlink Index

Chapters 1 - 98

   I. Every man, O judges, who, without being prompted by any enmity, or stung by any private injury, or tempted by any reward, prosecutes another for the good of the republic, ought to consider, not only how great a burden he is taking upon himself at the time, but also how much trouble he is courting for the remainder of his life. For he imposes on himself a law of innocence, of moderation, and of all virtues, who demands from another an account of his life; and he does so the more, if, as I said before, he does this being urged by no other motive except a desire for the common good. For if anyone assumes to himself to correct the manners of others, and to reprove their faults, who will pardon him, if he himself turn aside in any particular form from the strict line of duty? Wherefore, a citizen of that sort is the more to be praised and beloved by all men for this reason also,--that he does not only remove a worthless citizen from the republic, but he also promises and binds himself to be such a man as to be compelled, not only by an ordinary inclination to virtue and duty, but by even some more unavoidable principle, to live virtuously and honorably. And, therefore, O judges, that most illustrious and most eloquent man, Lucius Crassus, was often heard to say that he did not repent of anything so much as having ever proceeded aginst Gaius Carbo: for by so doing he had his inclination as to everything less uncontrolled, and he thought, too, that his way of life was remarked by more people than he liked. And he, fortified as he was by the protection of his own genius and fortune, was yet hampered by this anxiety which he had brought upon himself, before his judgment was fully formed, at his entrance into life; on which account virtue and integrity is less looked for from those who undertake this business as young men, than from those who do so at a riper age; for they, for the sake of credit and ostentation, become accusers of others before they have had time to take notice how much more free the life of those who have accused no one is. We who have already shown both what we could do, and what judgment we had, unless we could easily restrain our desires, should never, of our own accord, deprive ourselves of all liberty and freedom in our way of life.

   II. And I have a greater burden on me than those who have accused other men, (if that deserves to be called a burden which you bear with pleasure and delight,)--but still I have in one respect undertaken a greater burden than others who have done the same thing, because all men are required to abstain most especially from those vices for which they have repoved another. Have you accused any thief or rapacious man? You must forever avoid all suspicion of avarice. Have you prosecuted any spiteful or cruel man? You must forever take care not to appear in any matter the least harsh or severe. A seducer? an adulterer? You must take care most diligently that no trace of licentiousness be ever seen in your conduct. In short, everything which you have impeached in another must be earnestly avoided by you yourself. In truth, not only no accuser, but no repover even can be endured, who is himself detected in the vice which he reproves in another. I, in the case of one man, am finding fault with every vice which can exist in a wicked and abandoned man. I say that there is no indication of lust, of wickedness, of audacity, which you cannot see clearly in the life of that one man. In the case of this criminal, I, O judges, establish this law against myself; that I must so live as to appear to be, and always to have been, utterly unlike that man, not only in all my actions and words, but even in that arrogance and haughtiness of countenance and eyes which you see before you. I will bear without uneasiness, O judges, that that course of life which was previously agreeable to me of my own accord, shall now, by the law and conditions I have laid down for myself, become necessary for me.

   III. And in the case of this man you often, Hortensius, are asking me, under the pressure of what enmity or what injury I have come forward to accuse him. I omit all mention of my duty, and of my connection with the Sicilians; I answer you as to the point of enmity. Do you think there is any greater enmity than that arising from the opposite opinions of men, and the contrariety of their wishes and inclinations? Can he who thinks good faith the holiest thing in life avoid being an enemy to that man who, as quaestor, dared to despoil, to desert, to betray, and to attack his consul, whose counsels he had shared, whose money he had received, with all whose business affairs he had been entrusted? Can he who reverences modesty and chastity behold with equanimity the daily adulteries, the dissolute manners of that man, the domestic pandering to his passions? Can he who wishes to pay due honors to the immortal gods, by any means avoid being an enemy to that man who hasplundered all the temples, who has dared to commit his robberies even on the track of the wheels of the sacred car [Thensa was the chariot or car on which the images of the gods were carried in the Ludi Circenses]? Must not he who thinks that all men ought to live under equal laws, be very hostile to you, when he consideres the variety and caprice of your degrees? Must not he who grieves at the injuries of the allies and the distress of the provinces be excited against you by the plundering of Asia, the harassing of Pamphylia, the miserable state and the agony of Sicily? Ought not he who desires the rights and the liberty of the Roman citizens to be held sacred among all men,--to be even more than an enemy to you, when here collects your scourgings, your executions, your crosses erected for the punishment of Roman citizens? Or if he had in any particular made a degree contrary to my interest unjustly, would you then think that I was fairly an enemy to him; but now that he has acted contrary to the interests, and property, and advantage, and inclination, and welfare of all good men, do you ask why I am an enemy to a man towards whom the whole Roman people is hostile? I, who above all other men ought to undertake, to gratify the desires of the Roman people, even a greater burden and duty than my strength perhaps is equal to.

   IV. What? cannot even those matters, which seem more trifling, move anyone's mind,--that the worthlessnesss and audacity of that man should have a more easy access to your own friendship, Hortensius, and to that of other great and noble men, than the virtue and integrity of any one of us? You hate the industry of new men; you despise their economy; you scorn their modesty; you wish their talents and virtues to be depressed and extinguished. You are fond with Verres: I suppose so. If you are not gratified with his virtue, and his innocence, and his industry, and his modesty, and his chastity, at least you are transported at his conversation, his accomplishments, and his high breeding. He has no such gifts; but, on the contrary, all his qualities are stained with the most extreme disgrace and infamy, with most extraordinary stupidity and boorishness. If any man's house is open to this man, do you think it is open, or rather that it is yawning and begging something? He is a favorite of your factors, of your valets. Your freedmen, your slaves, your housemaids, are in love with him. He, when he calls, is introduced out of his turn; he alone is admitted, while others, often most virtuous men, are excluded. From which it is very easily understood that those people are the most dear to you who have lived in such a manner that without your protection they cannot be made safe. What? do you think this car be endurable to anyone,--that we should live on slender incomes in such a way as not even to wish to acquire anything more; that we should be content with maintaining our dignity, and the goodwill of the Roman people, not by wealth, but by virtue; but that that man, having robbed everyone on all sides, and having escaped with impunity, should live in prosperity and abundance? that all your banquets should be decorated with his plate, your forum and hall of assembly with his statues and pictures? especially when, through your own valor, you are rich in all such trophies? That it should be Verres who adorns your villas with his spoils? That it should be Verres who is vieing with Lucius Mummius: so that the one appears to have laid waste more cities of the allies, than the other overthrew belonging to the enemy? That the one, unassisted, seems to have adorned more villas with the decorations of temples, than the other decorated temples with the spoils of of the enemy? And shall he be dearer to you, in order that others may more willingly become subservient to your covetousness at their own risk?

   V. But these topics shall be mentioned at another time, and they have already been mentioned elsewhere. Let us proceed to the other matters, after we have in a few words, O judges, begged your favorite construction. All through our former speech we had your attention very carefully given to us. It was very pleasing to us; but it will be far more pleasing, if you will be so kind as to attend to what follows; because in all the things which were said before, there was some pleasure arising from the very variety and novelty of the subjects and of the charges. Now we are going to discuss the affair of wheat; which indeed in the greatness of the iniquity exceeds nearly all the other charges, but will have far less variety and agreeableness in the discussion. But it is quite worthy of your authority, O judges, in the matter of careful hearing, to give no less weight to conscientousness in the discharge of your duties, than to pleasure. In inquiring into this charge respecting the wheat, keep this is view, O judges, that you are going to inquire into the estates and fortunes of all the Sicilians--into the property of the all the Roman citizens who cultivate land in Sicily--into the revenues handed down to you by your ancestors--into the life and sustenance of the Roman people. And if these matters appear to you inportant,--any, and most important,--do not be weary if they are pressed upon you from various points of view, and at some length. It cannot escape the notice of any one of you, O judges, that all the advantage and desireableness of Sicily, which is in any way connected with the convenience of the Roman people, consists mainly in its wheat; for in other respects we are indeed assisted by that province, but as to this article, we are fed and supported by it. The case, O judges, will be divided under three heads in my accusation: for, first, I shall speak of the collectors of the tenths; secondly, of the wheat which has been bought; thirdly, of that which has been valued.

   VI. There is, O judges, this difference between Sicily and other provinces, in the matter of tribute derived from the lands; that in the other provinces, either the tribute imposed is of a fixed amount, which is called stipendarium, as in the case of the Spaniards and most of the Carthaginian provinces, being a sort of reward of victory, and penalty for war; or else a contract exists between the state and the farmers, settled by the censor, as is the case in Asia, by the Sempronian law. But the cities in Sicily were received into our friendship and alliance, retaining the same laws which they had before, and that being subject to the Roman people on the same conditions as they had formerly been subject to their own princes. Very few cities of Sicily were subdued in war by our ancestors, and even in the case of those which were, though their land was made the public domain of the Roman people, still it was afterwards restored to them. That domain is regularly let out to farmers by the censors. There are two federate cities, whose tenths are not put up to auction; the city of the Mamertines and Taurominium. Besides these, there are five cities without any treaty, free and enfranchised; Centuripa, Halesa, Segesta, Halicya, and Panormus. All the land of the other states of Sicily is subject to the payment of tenths; and was so, before the sovereignty of the Roman people, by the will and laws of the Sicilians themselves. See now the wisdom of our ancestors, who, when they had added Sicily, so valuable an assistant both in war and peace, to the republic, were so careful to defend the Sicilians and to retain them in their allegiance, that they not only imposed no new tax upon their lands, but did not even alter the law of putting up for sale the contracts of the farmers of the tenths, or the time or place of selling them; so that they were to put them up for sale at the regular time of year, at the same place, in Sicily,--in short, in every respect as the law of Hiero directed; they permitted them still to manage their own affairs, and were not willing that their minds should be disturbed even by a new name to a law, much less by an actual new law. And so they resolved that the farming of the tenths should always be put up to auction according to the law of Hiero, in order that the discharge of that ofice might be the more agreeable if, though the supreme power was changed, still, not only the laws of that king, who was very dear to the Sicilians, but his name also remained in force among them. This law the Sicilians always used before Verres was praetor. He first dared to root up and alter the established usages of them all, their customs which had been handed down to them from their ancestors, the conditions of their friendship with us, and the rights secured to them by our alliance.

   VII. And in this, this is the first thing I object to and accuse you for, that in a custom of such long standing, and so thoroughly established, you made any innovation at all. Have you ever gained anything by this genius of yours? Were you superior in prudence and wisdom to so many wise and illustrious men who governed that province before you? That is your renown; this praise is due to your genius and diligence. I admit and grant this to you. I do know that, at Rome, when you were praetor, you did transfer by your edict the possession of inheritance from the children to strangers, from the first heirs to the second, from the laws to your own licentious covetousness. I do know that you corrected the edicts of all your predecessors, and gave possession of inheritance not according to the evidence of those who produced the will, but according to theirs who said that a will had been made. And I do know too that those new practices, first brought forward and invented by you, were a very great profit to you. I recollect, moreover, that you also abrogated and altered the laws of the censors about keeping the public buildings in repair; so that he might not take the contract to whom the care of the building belonged; so that his guardians and relations might not consult the advantage of their ward so as to prevent his being stripped of all his property; that you appointed a very limited time for the work, in order to exclude others from the business; but that with respect to the contractor you favored, you did not observe any fixed time at all. So that I do not marvel at your having established a new law in the matter of the tenths; you, a man so wise, so thoroughly practiced in praetorian edicts and censorian laws. I do not wonder, I say, at your having invented something; but I do blame you, I do impeach you, for having of your own accord, without any command from the people, without the authority of the senate, changed the laws of the province of Sicily. The senate permitted Lucius Octavius and Gaius Cotta, the consuls, to put up to auction at Rome the tenths of wine, and oil, and of pulse, which before your time the quaestors had been in the habit of putting up in Sicily; and to establish any law with respect to those articles which they might think fit. When the contract was offered for sale, the farmers begged them to add some clauses to the law, and yet not to depart from the other laws of the censors. A man opposed this, who by accident was at Rome at that time; your host,--your host, and intimate friend, I say, Verres,--Sthenius, of Thermae, who is here present. The consuls examined into the matter. When they had summoned many of the principal and most honorable men of the state to form a council on the subject; according to the opinion of that council they gave notice that they should put the tenths up to auction according to the law of Hiero.

   VIII. Was is not so? Men of the greatest wisdom, invested with the supreme authority, to whom the senate had given the whole power of making laws respecting the letting out the farming of the tributes, (and this power had been ratified by the people, while only one Sicilian objected to it,) would not alter the name of the law of Hiero, even when the measure would have been accomplished by an augmentation of the revenue; but you, a man of no wisdom, of no authority, without any order from people or senate, while all Sicily objected, abrogated the whole law of Hiero, to the greatest injury and even destruction of the revenue. But what is law is this, O judges, which he amends, or rather totally abrogates? A law framed with the greatest acuteness and the greatest diligence, which gives up the cultivator of the land to the collector of the tenths, guarded by so many securities, that neither in the wheat fields, nor on the threshing floors, nor in the barns, nor while removing his wheat privily, nor while carrying it away openly, can the cultivator defraud the collector of one single grain without the severest punishment. The law has been framed with such care, that it is plain that a man framed it who had no other revenues; with such acuteness that it was plain that he was a Sicilian; with such severity, that he was evidently a tyrant: by this law, however, cultivating the land was an advantageous trade for the Sicilian; for the laws for the collectors of the tenths were also drawn up so carefully that it is not possible for more than the tenth to be extorted from the cultivator against his will. And though all these things were settled in this way, after so many years and even ages, Verres was found not only to change, but entirely to overturn them, and to convert to purposes of his own most infamous profit those regulations which had long ago been instituted and established for the safety of the allies and the benefit of the republic. In the first instance he appointed certain men, collectors of the tenths in name, in reality the ministers and satellites of his desires; by whom I will show that the province was for three years so harassed and plundered, O judges, that it will take many years and a long series of wise and incorruptible governors to recover it.

   IX. The chief of all those who were called collectors, was Quintus Apronius, that man whom you see in court, concerning whose extraordinary wickedness you have heard the complaints of most influential deputations. Look, O judges, at the face and countenance of the man; and from that obstinacy which he retains now in the most desperate circumstances, you may imagine and recollect what his arrogance must have been in Sicily. This Apronius is the man whom Verres (though he had collected together the most infamous men from all quarters, and though he had taken with him no small number of men like himself in worthlessness, licentiousness, and audacity,) still considered most like himself of any man in the whole province. And so in a very short time they became intimate, not because of interest, nor of reason, nor of any introduction from mutual friends, but from the baseness and similiarity of their pursuits. You know the depraved and licentious habits of Verres. Imagine to yourselves, if you can, anyone who can be in every respect equal to him in the wicked and dissolute commission of every crime, that man will be Apronius; who, as he shows not only by his life, but by his person and countenance, is a vast gulf and whirlpool of every sort of vice and infamy. Him did Verres employ as his chief agent in all his adulteries, in all his plundering of temples, in all his debauched banquets; and the similiarity of their manners caused such a friendship and unanimity between them, that Apronius, whom everyone else thought a boor and a barbarian, appeared to him alone an agreeable and an accomplished man; that, though everyone else hated him, and could not bear the sight of him, Verres could not bear to be away from him; that, though others shunned even the banquets at which Apronius was to be present, Verres used the same cup with him; lastly, that, though the odor of Apronius' breath and person is such that even, as one may say, the beasts cannot endure him, he appeared to Verres alone sweet and pleasant. He sat next to him on the judgment-seat; he was alone with him in his chamber; he was at the head of his table at his banquets; and especially then, when he began to dance at the feast naked, while the young son of the praetor was sitting by.

   X. This man, as I began to say, Verres selected for his principal agent in distressing and plundering the fortunes of the cultivators of the land. To this man's audacity, and wickedness, and cruelty, our most faithful allies and most virtuous citizens were given up, O judges, by this praetor, and were placed at his mercy by new regulations and new edicts, the entire law of Hiero, as I said before, having been rejected and repudiated.
   First of all, listen, O judges, to his splendid edict. "Whatever amount of tithe the collector declared that the cultivator ought to pay, that amount the cultivator should be compelled to pay to the collector."--How? Let him pay as much as Apronius demands? What is this? the regulation of a praetor for allies, or the edict and command of an insane tyrant to conquered enemies? Am I to give as much as he demands? He will demand every grain that I can get out of my land. Am I to give all? Aye, and more too, if he chooses. What, then, am I to do? What do you think? You must either pay, or you will be convicted of having disobeyed the edict. O ye immortal gods, what a state of things is this? For it is hardly credible. And indeed I am persuaded, O judges, that, though you should think that all other vices are met in this man, still this must seem false to you. For I myself, though all Sicily told me of it, still should not dare to affirm this to you, if I was not able to recite to you these edicts from his own documents in those very words--as I will do. Give this, I pray you, to the clerk; he shall read from the register. Read the edict about the returns of property.

[The edict about the returns of property is read.]

He says I am not reading the whole. For that is what he seems to intimate by shaking his head. What am I passing over? is it that part where you take care of the interests of the Sicilians, and show regard for the miserable cultivators? For you announce in your edict, that you will condemn the collector in eightfold damages, if he has taken more than was due to him. I do not wish anything to be passed over. Read this also which he requires; read every word.

[The edict about the eightfold damages is read.]

Does this mean that the cultivator is to prosecute the collector at law? It is a miserable and unjust thing for men to be brought from the country into the forum, from the plough to the courts of justice; from habits of rustic life to actions and trials to which they are wholly unaccustomed.

   XI. When in all the other countries liable to tribute, of Asia, of Macedonia, of Spain, of Gaul, of Africa, of Sicily, and in those parts of Italy also which are so liable; when in all these, I say, the farmer in every case has a right to claim and a power to distrain, but not to seize and take possession without the interference of the law, you established regulations respecting the most virtuous and honest and honorable class of men,--that is, respecting the cultivators of the soil,--which are contrary to all other laws. Which is the most just, for the collector to have to make his claim, or for the cultivator to have to recover what has been unlawfully seized? for them to go to trial when things are in their original state, or when one side is ruined? for him to be in possession of the property who has acquired by hard labor, or him who has obtained it by bidding for it at an auction? What more? They who cultivate single acres, who never cease from personal labor, of which class there were a great number, and a vast multitude among the Sicilians before you came as praetor,--what are they to do? When they have given to Apronius all he has demanded, are they to leave their allotments? to leave their own household gods? to come to Syracuse, in order while you, forsooth, are praetor, to prosecute, by the equal law which they will find there, Apronius, the delight and joy of your life, in a suit for recovery of their property! But so be it. Some fearless and experienced cultivator will be found, who, when he has paid the collector as much as he says he is due, will seek to recover it by course of law, and will sue for the eightfold penalty. I look for the vigor of the edict, for the impartiality of the praetor; I espouse the cause of the cultivator; I wish to see Apronius condemned in the eightfold penalty. What now does the cultivator demand? Nothing but sentence for an eightfold penalty, according to the edict. What says Apronius? He is unable to object. What says the praetor? He bids him challenge the judges. Let us, says he, make out the decuries. What decuries? Those from my retinue; you will challenge the others. What? of what men is that retinue composed? Of Volusius the soothsayer, and Cornelius the physician, and the other dogs whom you see licking up the crumbs about my judgment-seat. For he never appointed any judge or recuperator [The recuperatores were a kind of judges, usually appointed by the praetors in some particular kinds of actions, and especially in those relating to money] from the proper body [The Latin word here is conventus, which often occurs in these orations; properly it means any assembly of men, but when the Romans had reduced foreign countries into the form of provinces, it assumed a more definite meaning. Sometimes it was applied to the whole body of Roman citizens, who were either permanently or temporarily settled in a province. Also, in order to facilitate the administration of justice, a province was divided into a number of districts, each of which was called conventus...Roman citizens living in a province, at certain times of the year, fixed by the proconsul, assembled in the chief town of the district, and this meeting bore the name of conventus. At this conventus, litigant parties applied to the proconsul, who selected a number of judges from the conventus to try their causes. The proconsul himself presided at the trial, and pronounced the sentence according to the views of the judges who were his assessors. --Smith, Dict. Ant. in v. Conventus]. He said all men who possessed one clod of earth were unfairly prejudiced against the collectors. People had to sue Apronius before these men who had not yet got rid of the surfeit from his last banquet.

   XII. What a splendid and memorable court! what an impartial decision! what a safe resource for the cultivators of the soil! And that you may understand what sort of decisions are obtained in actions for the eightfold penalty, and what sort of judges those selected from that man's retinue are considered to be, listen to this. Do you think that any collector, when this license was allowed him of taking from the cultivator whatever he claimed, ever did damand more than was due? Consider yourselves in your own minds, whether you think anyone ever did so, especially when it might have happened, not solely through covetousness, but even through ignorance. Many must have done so. But I say that all extorted more, and a great deal more, than the proper tenths. Tell me of one man, in the whole three years of your praetorship, who was condemned in the eightfold penalty. Condemned, indeed! Tell me of one man who was ever prosecuted according to your edict. There was not, in fact, one cultivator who was able to complain that injustice had been done to him; not one collector who claimed one grain more as due to him than really was due. In every district the cultivators, harassed and plundered as they were, were complaining, and yet no instance of a trial can be found. Why is this? Why did so many bold, honorable, and highly esteemed men--so many Sicilians, so many Roman knights--when injured by one most worthless and infamous man, not seek to recover the eightfold penalty, which had most unquestionably been incurred? What is the cause, what is the reason? That reason alone, O judges, which you see,--because they knew they should come off at the trial defrauded and ridiculed. In truth, what sort of trial must that be, when three of the profligate and abandoned retinue of Verres sat on the tribunal under the name of judges?--slaves of Verres, not inherited by him from his father, but recommended to him by his mistress. The cultivator, forsooth, might plead his cause; he might show that no corn was left him by Apronius,--that even his other property was seized; that he himself had been driven away with blows. Those admirable men would lay their heads together, they would chat to one another about revels and harlots, if they could catch any when leaving the praetor. The cause would seem to be properly heard: Apronius would have risen, full of his new dignity as a knight; not like a collector all over dirt and dust, but reeking with perfumes, languid with the lateness of the last night's drinking party, with his first motion, and with his breath he would have filled the whole place with the odor of wine, of perfume, and of his person. He would have said, what he repeatedly has said, that he had bought, not the tenths, but the property and fortunes of the cultivators; that he, Apronius, was not a collector, but a second Verres,--the absolute lord and master of those men. And when he had said this, those admirable men of Verres' train, the judges, would deliberate, not about acquitting Apronius, but they would inquire how they could condemn the cultivator himself to pay damages to Apronius.

   XIII. When you had granted this license for plundering the cultivators to the collectors of the tenths,--that is, to Apronius,--by allowing him to demand as much as he chose, and to carry off as much as he demanded, were you preparing this defense for your trial,--that you had promised by edict that you would assign judges in a trial for an eightfold penalty? Even if in truth you were to give power to the cultivator, not only to challenge his judges, but even to pick them out of the whole body of the Syracusan assembly, (a body of most eminent and honorable men,) still no one could bear this new sort of injustice,--that, when one has given up the whole of one's produce to the farmer, and had one's property taken out of one's hands, then one is to endeavor to recover one's property and to seek its restitution by legal proceedings; but when what is granted by the edict is, in name indeed, a trial, but in reality a collusion of your attendants, most worthless men, with the collectors, who are your partners, and besides that, with the judges, do you still dare to mention that trial, especially when what you say is refuted, not merely by my speech, but by the facts themselves? when in all the distresses of the cultivators of the soil, and all the injustice of the collectors, not only has no trial ever taken place according to that splendid edict, but none has ever been so much as demanded? However, he will be more favorable to the cultivators than he appears; for the same man who has announced in his edict that he will allow a trial against the collectors, in which they shall be liable to an eightfold penalty, had it also set down in his edict, that he would grant a similar trial against the cultivators, in which they should be liable to a fourfold penalty. Who now dares to say that this man was unfavorably disposed or hostile to the cultivators? How much more lenient is he to them than to the collectors? He has ordered in his edict that the Sicilian magistrate should exact from the cultivator whatever the collector declared ought to be paid to him. What sentence has he left behind, which can be pronounced against a cultivator of the soil? It is not a bad thing, says he, for that fear to exist; so that, when the money has been exacted from the Cultivator, still there will be behind a fear of the court of justice, to prevent him from stirring himself. If you wish to exact money from me by process of law, remove the Sicilian magistrate. If you employ this violence, what need is there of a process of law? Moreover, who will there be who would not prefer paying to your collectors what they demand, to being condemned in four times the amount by your attendants.

   XIV. But that is a splendid clause in the edict, that gives notice that in all disputes which arise between the cultivator and the collector, he will assign judges, if either party wishes it. In the first place, what dispute can there be when he who ought to make a claim, makes a seizure instead? and when he seizes, not as much as is due, but as much as he chooses? and when he, whose property is seized, cannot possibly recover his own by a suit at law? In the second place, this dirty fellow wants even in this to seem cunning and wily; for he frames his edict in these words-"If either wishes it, I will assign judges." How neatly does he think he is robbing him! He gives each party the power of choice; but it makes no difference whether he wrote--"If either wishes it," or "If the collector wishes it." For the cultivator will never wish for those judges of yours. What next? What sort of edicts are those which he issued to meet particular occasions, at the suggestion of Apronius? When Quintus Septitius, a most honorable man, and a Roman knight, resisted Apronius, and declared that he would not pay more than a tenth, a sudden special edict makes its appearance, that no one is to remove his corn from the threshing-floor, before he has settled the demands of the collector. Septitius put up with this injustice also, and allowed his corn to be damaged by the rain, while remaining on the threshing-floor; when on a sudden that most fruitful and profitable edict comes out, that everyone was to have his tenths delivered at the water-side before the first of August. By this edict, it was not the Sicilians, (for he had already sufficiently crushed and ruined them by his previous edicts,) but all those Roman knights who had fancied that they could preserve their rights against Apronius, excellent men, and highly esteemed by other praetors, who were delivered bound hand and foot into the power of Apronius. For just listen and see what sort of edicts these are. "A man," says he, "is not to remove his corn from the threshing-floor, unless he has settled all demands." This is a sufficiently strong inducement to making unfair demands; for I had rather give too much, than not remove my corn from the threshing-floor at the proper time. But that violence does not affect Septitius, and some others like Septitius, who say, "I will rather not remove my corn, than submit to an extortionate demand." To these then the second edict is opposed. "You must have delivered it by the first of August." I will deliver it then.--"Unless you have settled the demands, you shall not remove it." So the fixing of the day for delivering it at the waterside, compelled the man to remove his corn from the threshing-floor. And the prohibition to remove, unless the demand were settled, made the settlement compulsory and not voluntary.

   XV. But what follows is not only contrary to the law of Hiero, not only contrary to the customs of all former praetors, but even contrary to all the rights of the Sicilians, which they have as granted them by the senate and people of Rome,--that they shall not be forced to give security to appear in any courts of justice but their own. Verres made a regulation that the cultivator should appear to an action brought by a collector in any court which the collector might choose. So that in this way also gain might accrue to Apronius, when he dragged a defendant all the way from Leontini to Lilybaeum to appear before the court there, by making false accusations against the wretched cultivators. Although that device for false accusation was also contrived with singular cunning, when he ordered that the cultivators should make a return of their acres as to what they were sown with. And this had not only great power in causing most iniquitous claims to be submitted to, as we shall show hereafter, and that too without any advantage to the republic, but at the same time it gave a great handle to false accusations, which all men were liable to if Apronius chose. For, as anyone said anything contrary to his inclination, immediately he was summoned before the court on some charge relative to the returns made of his lands. Through fear of which action a great quantity of corn was extorted from many, and vast sums were collected; not that it was really difficult to make a correct return of a man's acres, or even to make an extravagantly liberal one, (for what danger could there be in doing that?) but still it opened a pretext for demanding a trial because the cultivator had not made his return in the terms of the edict. And you must feel sure what sort of trial that would be while that man was praetor, if you recollect what sort of a train and retinue he had about him. What is it, then, which I wish you to understand, O judges, from the iniquity of these new edicts? That any injury has been done to our allies? That you see. That the authority of his predecessors has been overruled by him? He will not dare to deny it. That Apronius had such great influence while he was praetor? That he must unavoidably confess.

   XVI. But perhaps you will inquire in this place, as the law reminds you to do, whether he himself has made any money by this conduct. I will show you that he has made vast sums, and I will prove that he established all those iniquitous rules which I have mentioned before, with no object but his own profit, when I have first removed out of his line of defense that rampart which he thinks he shall be able to employ against all my attacks.
   I sold, says he, the tenths at a high price. What are you saying? Did you, you most audacious and senseless of men, sell the tenths? Did you sell those portions which the senate and people of Rome allowed you to sell, or the whole produce; and in that the whole property and fortunes of the cultivators? If the crier had openly given notice by your order, that there was being sold, not a tenth, but half the corn, and if purchasers had come with the idea of buying half the wheat,--if you had then sold the half for more than the other praetors had sold the tenth part of it, would that seem strange to anyone? But what shall we say if the crier gave notice of a sale of the tenths, but if, in fact, by your regulation,--by your edict,--by the terms of the sale which you offered, more than a half portion was sold? Will you still think that creditable to yourself, to have sold what you had no right to sell for more than others sold what they fairly could? Oh, I sold the tenths for more than others had sold them. By what means did you manage that? by innocent means? Look at the temple of Castor, and then, if you dare, talk of your innocent means. By your diligence? Look at the erasures in your registers at the name of Sthenius of Thermae, and then have the face to call yourself diligent. By your ability? You who refused at the former pleadings to put questions to the witnesses, and preferred presenting yourself dumb before them, pray call yourself and your advocates able men as much as you please. By what means, then, did you manage what you say you did? For it is a great credit to you if you have surpassed your predecessors in ability, and left to your successors your example and your authority. Perhaps you had no one before you fit to imitate. But, no doubt, all men will imitate you, the inventor and first parent of such excellent methods. What cultivator of the soil, when you were praetor, paid a tenth? Who paid two-tenths only? Who was there who did not think himself treated with the greatest lenity if be paid three-tenths instead of one, except a few men, who, on account of a partnership with you in your robberies, paid nothing at all? See how great a difference there is between your harshness and the kindness of the senate. The senate, when owing to any necessity of the republic it is compelled to decree that a second tenth shall be exacted, decrees that for that second tenth money be paid to the cultivators, so that the quantity which is taken beyond what is strictly due may be considered to be purchased, not to be taken away. You, when you were exacting and seizing so many tenths, not by a decree of the senate, but by your own edicts and nefarious regulations, shall you think that you have done a great deed if you sell them for more than Lucius Hortensius, the father of this Quintus Hortensius, did,--than Gnaeus Pompeius or Gaius Marcellus sold them for; men who did not violate justice or law, or established rules? Were you to consider what might be got in one year, or in two years, and to neglect the safety of the province, the well-doing of the corn interest, and the interests of the republic in future times, though you came to the administration of affairs when matters were so managed that sufficient corn was supplied to the Roman people from Sicily, and still it was a profitable thing for the cultivators to plough and till their land? What have you brought about? What have you gained? In order that, while you were praetor, some addition might be made to the revenue derived from the tenths, you have caused the allotments of land to be deserted and abandoned. Lucius Metellus succeeded you. Were you more innocent than Metellus? Were you more desirous of credit and honor? For you were seeking the consulship, but Metellus neglected the renown which he had inherited from his father and his grandfather. He sold the tenths for much less, not only than you had done, but even than those had who had sold them before you.

   XVII. I ask, if he himself could not contrive any means for selling them at the best possible price, could he not follow in the fresh steps of you the very last praetor, so as to use your admirable edicts and regulations, invented and devised by you their author? But he thought that he should not at all be a Metellus if he imitated you in anything; he who when he thought that he was to go to that province sent letters to the cities of Sicily from Rome, a thing which no one in the memory of man ever did before, in which he exhorts and entreats the Sicilians to plough and sow their land for the service of the Roman people. He begs this some time before his arrival, and at the same time declares that he will sell the tenths according to the law of Hiero; that is to say, that in the whole business of the tenths he will do nothing like that man. And he writes this, not from being impelled by any covetousness to send letters into the province before his time, but out of prudence, lest, if the seed-time passed, we should have not a single grain of corn in the province of Sicily. See Metellus' letters. Read the letters of Lucius Metellus.

[The letters of Lucius Metellus are read.]

   XVIII. It is these letters, O judges, of Lucius Metellus, which you have heard, that have raised all the corn that there is this year in Sicily. No one would have broken one clod of earth in all the land of Sicily subject to the payment of tenths, if Metellus had not sent this letter. What? Did this idea occur to Metellus by inspiration, or had he his information from the Sicilians who had come to Rome in great numbers, and from the traders of Sicily? And who is ignorant what great crowds of them assembled at the door of the Marcelli, the most ancient patrons of Sicily? what crowds of them thronged to Gnaeus Pompeius, the consul-elect, and to the rest of the men connected with the province? And such a thing never yet took place in the instance of anyone, as for a man to be openly accused by those people over whose property and families he had supreme dominion and power. So great was the effect of his injuries, that men preferred to suffer anything, rather than not to bewail themselves and complain of his wickedness and injuries. And when Metellus had sent these letters couched in almost a supplicating tone to all the cities, still he was far from prevailing with them to sow the land as they formerly had. For many had fled, as I shall presently show, and had left not only their allotments of land but even their paternal homes, being driven away by the injuries of that man. I will not indeed, O judges, say anything for the sake of unduly exaggerating my charges. But the sentiments which I have imbibed through my eyes and in my mind, those I will state to you truly, and, as far as I can, plainly. For when four years afterwards I came into Sicily, it appeared to me in such a condition as those countries are apt to be in, in which a bitter and long war has been carried on. Those plains and fields which I had formerly seen beautiful and verdant, I now saw so laid waste and desolate that the very land itself seemed to feel the want of its cultivators, and to be mourning for its master. The land of Herbita, of Enna, of Morgantia, of Assoria, of Imachara, and of Agyrium, was so deserted as to its principal part, that we had to look not only for the allotments of land, but also for the body of owners. But the district of Aetna, which used to be most highly cultivated, and that which was the very head of the corn country, the district of Leontini, the character of which was formerly such that when you had once seen that sown, you did not fear any dearness of provisions, was so rough and unsightly, that in the most fruitful part of Sicily we were asking where Sicily could be gone? The previous year had, indeed, greatly shaken the cultivators, but the last one had utterly ruined them.

   XIX. Will you dare also to make mention to me of the tenths? Do you, after such wickedness, after such cruelty, after such numerous and serious injuries done to people, when the whole province of Sicily entirely depends on its arable land, and on its rights connected with that land; after the cultivators have been entirely ruined, the fields deserted--after you have left no one in so wealthy and populous a province--not only no property, but no hope even remaining; do you, I say, think that you can acquire any popularity by saying that you have sold the tenths at a better price than the other praetors? As if the Roman people had formed this wish, or the senate had given you this commission, by seizing all the fortunes of the cultivators under the name of tenths, to deprive the Roman people for all future time of that revenue, and of their supply of corn; and, as if after that, by adding some part of your own plunder to the total amount got from the tenths, you could appear to have deserved well of the Roman people. And I say this, as if his injustice was to be reproved in this particular, that, out of a desire for credit to be got by surpassing others in the sum derived from tenths, he had put forth a law rather too severe, and edicts rather too stringent, and rejected the examples of all his predecessors. You sold the tenths at a high price. What will be said, if I prove that you appropriated and took to your own house no less a sum than you had sent to Rome under the name of tenths? What is there to obtain popularity for you in that plan of yours, when you took for yourself from a province of the Roman people a share equal to that which you sent to the Roman people? What will be said if I prove that you took twice as much corn yourself as you sent to the Roman people? Shall we still expect to see your advocate toss his head at this accusation, and throw himself on the people, and on the assembly here present? These things you have heard before, O judges; but perhaps you have heard it on no other authority than report, and the common conversation of men. Know now that an enormous sum was taken by him on pretences connected with corn; and consider at the same time the profligacy of that saying of his, when he said that by the profit made on the tenths alone, he could buy himself off from all his dangers.

   XX. We have heard this for a long time, O judges. I say that there is not one of you who has not often heard that the collectors of the tenths were that man's partners. I do not think that anything else has been said against him falsely by those who think ill of him but this. For they are to be considered partners of a man, with whom the gains of a business are shared. But I say that the whole of these gains, and the whole of the fortunes of the cultivators, went to Verres alone. I say that Apronius, and those slaves of Venus, who were quite a new class of farmers first heard of in his praetorship, and the other collectors, were only agents of that one man's gains, and ministers of his plunder. How do you prove that? How did I prove that he had committed robbery in the contract for those pillars? Chiefly, I think, by this fact, that he had put forth an unjust and unprecedented law. For who ever attempted to change all the rights of people, and the customs of all men, getting great blame for so doing, except for some gain? I will proceed and carry this matter further. You sold the tenths according to an unjust law, in order to sell them for more money. Why, when the tenths were now knocked down and sold,--when nothing could now be added to their sum total, but much might be to your own gains,--why did new edicts appear, made on a sudden and to meet an emergency? For I say, that in your third year you issued edicts, that a collector might summon a man before the court anywhere he liked; that the cultivator might not remove his corn from the threshing-floor, before he had settled the claims of the collector; that they should have the tenths delivered at the water-side before the first of August. All these edicts, I say, you issued after the tenths had been sold. But if you had issued them for the sake of the republic, notice would have been given of them at the time of selling; because you were acting with a view to your own interest, you, being prompted by your love of gain and by the emergency, repaired the omission which had unintentionally occurred. But who can be induced to believe this--that you, without any profit, or even without the greatest profit to yourself, disregarded the great disgrace, the great danger to your position as a free man, and to your fortunes, which you were incurring, so far as, though you were daily hearing the groans and complaints of all Sicily,--though, as you yourself have said, you expected to be brought to trial for this,--though the hazard of this present trial is not at all inconsistent with the opinion you yourself had formed,--still to allow the cultivators of the soil to be harassed and plundered with circumstances of the most scandalous injustice? In truth, though you are a man of singular cruelty and audacity, still you would be unwilling for a whole province to be alienated from you,--for so many most honorable men to be made your greatest enemies, if your desire for money and present booty had not overcome all reason and all consideration of safety. But, O judges, since it is not possible for me to detail to you the sum total and the whole number of his acts of injustice,--since it would be an endless task to speak separately of the injuries done to each individual,--I beg you, listen to the different kinds of injustice.

   XXI. There is a man of Centuripa, named Nympho, a clever and industrious man, a most experienced and diligent cultivator. He, though he rented very large allotments, (as other rich men like him have been in the habit of doing in Sicily,) and though he cultivated them at great expense, keeping a great deal of stock, was treated by that man with such excessive injustice, that he not only abandoned his allotments, but even fled from Sicily, and came to Rome with many others who had been driven away by that man. He then contrived that the collector should assert that Nympho had not made a proper return of his number of acres, according to that notable edict, which had no other object except making profit of this sort. As Nympho wished to defend himself in a regular action, he appoints some excellent judges, that same physician Cornelius, (his real name is Artemidorus, a citizen of Perga, under which name he had formerly in his own country acted as guide to Verres, and as prompter in his exploit of plundering the temple of Diana,) and Volusius the soothsayer, and Valerius the crier. Nympho was condemned before he had fairly got into court. In what penalty? perhaps you will ask, for there was no fixed sum mentioned in the edict. In the penalty of all the wheat which was on his threshing-floors. So Apronius the collector takes, by a penalty for violating an edict, and not by any rights connected with his farming the revenue--not the tenth that was due, not wheat that had been removed and concealed, but seven thousand bushels of wheat--from the allotments of Nympho.

   XXII. A farm belonging to the wife of Xeno Menenius, a most noble man, had been let to a settler. The settler, because he could not bear the oppressive conduct of the collectors, had fled from his land. Verres gave his favorite sentence of condemnation against Xeno for not having made a return of his acres. Xeno said that it was no business of his; that the farm was let. Verres ordered a trial to take place according to this formula,--"If it should appear" that there were more acres in the farm than the settler had returned, then Xeno was to be condemned. He said not only that he had not been the cultivator of the land, which was quite sufficient, but also that he was neither the owner of that farm, nor the lessor of it; that it belonged to his wife; that she herself transacted her own affairs; that she had let the land. A man of the very highest reputation, and of the greatest authority, defended Xeno, Marcus Cossetius. Nevertheless Verres ordered a trial, in which the penalty was fixed at eighty thousand sesterces. Xeno, although he saw that judges were provided for him out of that band of robbers, still said that he would stand the trial. Then that fellow, with a loud voice, so that Xeno might hear it, orders his slaves of Venus to take care the man does not escape while the trial is proceeding, and as soon as it is over to bring him before him. And at the same time he said also, that he did not think that, if from his riches he disregarded the penalty of a conviction, he would also disregard the scourge. He, under the compulsion of this violence and this fear, paid the collectors all that Verres commanded.

   XXIII. There is a citizen of Murgentia, named Polemarchus, a virtuous and honorable man. He, when seven hundred bushels were demanded as the tenths due on fifty acres, because he refused to pay them, was summoned before the praetor at his own house; and, as he was still in bed, he was introduced into his bed-chamber, into which no one else was admitted, except his woman and the collector. There he was beaten and kicked about till, though he had refused before to pay seven hundred bushels, he now promised a thousand. Eubulides Grosphus is a man of Centuripa, a man above all others of his city, both for virtue and high birth, and also for wealth. They left this man, O judges, the most honorable man of a most honorable city, not merely only so much wheat, but only so much life as pleased Apronius. For by force, by violence, and by blows, he was induced to give wheat, not as much as he had, but as much as was demanded of him, which was even more. Sostratus, and Numenius, and Nymphodorus, of the same city, three brothers of kindred sentiments, when they had fled from their lands because more corn was demanded of them than their lands had produced, were treated thus,--Apronius collected a band of men, came into their allotments, took away all their tools, carried off their slaves, and drove off their livestock. Afterwards, when Nymphodorus came to Aetna to him, and begged to have his property restored to him, he ordered the man to be seized and hung up on a wild olive, a tree which is the forum there; and an ally and friend of the Roman people, a settler and cultivator of your domain, hung suspended from a tree in a city of our allies, and in the very forum, for as long a period as Apronius chose.
   I have now been recounting to you, O judges, the species of countless injuries which he has wrought,--one of each sort. An infinite host of evil actions I pass over. Place before your own eyes, keep in your minds, these invasions by collectors of the whole of Sicily, their plunderings of the cultivators of the soil, the harshness of this man, the absolute reign of Apronius. He despised the Sicilians; he did not consider them as men, he thought that they would not be vigorous in avenging themselves, and that you would treat their oppression lightly.

   XXIV. Be it so. He adopted a false opinion about them, and a very injurious one about you. But while he deserved so ill of the Sicilians, at least, I suppose, he was attentive to the Roman citizens; he favored them; he was wholly devoted to securing their goodwill and favor? He attentive to the Roman citizens? There were no men to whom he was more severe or more hostile. I say nothing of chains, of imprisonment, of scourgings, of executions. I say nothing even of that cross which he wished to be a witness to the Roman citizens of his humanity and benevolence to them. I say nothing, I say, of all this, and I put all this off to another opportunity. I am speaking about the tenths,--about the condition of the Roman citizens in their allotments; and how they were treated you heard from themselves. They have told you that their property was taken from them. But since there was such a cause for it as there was, these things are to be endured,--I mean, the absence of all influence in justice, of all influence in established customs. There are, in short, no evils, O judges, of such magnitude that brave men, of great and free spirit, think them intolerable. What shall we say if, while that man was praetor, violent hands were, without any hesitation, laid by Apronius on Roman knights, who were not obscure, nor unknown, but honorable, and even illustrious? What more do you expect? What more do you think I can say? Must I pass as quickly as possible from that man and from his actions, in order to come to Apronius, as, when I was in Sicily, I promised him that I would do?--who detained for two days in the public place at Leontini, Gaius Matrinius, a man, O judges, of the greatest virtue, the greatest industry, the highest popularity. Know, O judges, that a Roman knight was kept two days without food, without a roof over his head, by a man born in disgrace, trained in infamy, practised in accommodating himself to all Verres's vices and lusts; that he was kept and detained by the guards of Apronius two days in the forum at Leontini, and not released till he had agreed to submit to his terms.

   XXV. For why, O judges, should I speak of Quintus Lollius, a Roman knight of tried probity and honor? (the matter which I am going to mention is clear, notorious, and undoubted throughout all Sicily;)--who, as he was a cultivator of the domain in the district of Aetna, and as his farm belonged to Apronius' district as well as the rest, relying on the ancient authority and influence of the equestrian order, declared that he would not pay the collectors more than was due from him to them. His words are reported to Apronius. He laughed, and marvelled that Lollius had heard nothing of Matrinius or of his other actions. He sends his slaves of Venus to the man. Remark this also, that a collector had officers appointed to attend him by the praetor; and see if this is a slight argument that he abused the name of the collectors to purposes of his own gain. Lollius is brought before Apronius by the slaves of Venus, and dragged along, at a convenient moment, when Apronius had just returned from the palaestra, and was lying on a couch which he bad spread in the forum of Aetna. Lollius is placed in the middle of that seemly banquet of gladiators. I would not, in truth, O judges, believe the things which I am now saying, although I heard them commonly talked about, if the old man had not himself told them to me in the most solemn manner, when he was with tears expressing his thanks to me and to the willingness with which I had undertaken this accusation. A Roman knight, I say, nearly ninety years old, is placed in the middle of Apronius' banquet, while Apronius in the meantime was rubbing his bead and face with ointment. "What is this, Lollius," says he, "cannot you behave properly, unless you are compelled by severe measures?" What was the man to do? should he hold his tongue, or answer him? In truth he, a man of that bright character, and that age, did not know what to do. Meantime Apronius called for supper and wine; and his slaves, who were of no better manners than their master, and were born of the same class and in the same rank of life, brought these things before the eyes of Lollius. The guests began to laugh, Apronius himself roared; unless, perchance, you suppose that he did not laugh in the midst of wine and feasting, who even now at the time of his danger and ruin cannot suppress his laughter. Not to detain you too long; know, O judges, that Quintus Lollius, under the compulsion of these insults, came into the terms and conditions of Apronius. Lollius, enfeebled by old age and disease, could not come to give his evidence. What need have we of Lollius? There is no one who is ignorant of this, no one of your own friends, no one who is brought forward by you, no one at all who, if he is asked, will say that he now hears this for the first time. Marcus Lollius, his son, a most excellent young man, is present; you shall bear what he says--For Quintus Lollius, his son, who was the accuser of Calidius, a young man both virtuous and bold, and of the highest reputation for eloquence, when being excited by these injuries and insults he had set out for Sicily, was murdered on the way; and the crime of his death is imputed indeed to fugitive slaves; but, in reality, no one in Sicily doubts that he must be murdered because he could not keep to himself his intentions respecting Verres. He, in truth, had no doubt that the man who, under the promptings of a mere love of justice, had already accused another, would be ready as an accuser for him on his arrival, when he was stimulated by the injuries of his father, and indignation at the treatment received by his family.

   XXVI. Do you now thoroughly understand, O judges, what a pest, what a barbarian has been let loose in your most ancient, most loyal, and nearest province? Do you see now on what account Sicily, which has before this endured the thefts, and rapine, and iniquities, and insults of so many men, has not been able to submit to this unprecedented, and extraordinary, and incredible series of injuries and insults? All men are now aware why the whole province sought out that man as a defender of its safety, from the effects of whose good faith, and diligence, and perseverance Verres could not possibly be saved. You have been present at many trials, you know that many guilty and wicked men have been impeached within your own recollection, and that of your ancestors. Have you ever seen anyone, have you ever heard of anyone, who has lived in the practice of such great, such open robberies, of such audacity, of such shameless impudence? Apronius had his attendants of Venus about him; he took them with him about the different cities; he ordered banquets to be prepared and couches to be spread for him at the public expense, and to be spread for him in the forum. Thither he ordered most honorable men to be summoned, not only Sicilians, but even Roman knights, so that men of the most thoroughly proved honor were detained at his banquet, when none but the most impure and profligate men would join him in a banquet. Would you, you most profligate and abandoned of all mortals, when you knew these things, when you were hearing of them every day, when you were seeing them, would you ever have allowed or endured that such things should have taken place, to your own great danger, if they had taken place without enormous profit to yourself? Was it the profit made by Apronius, and his most beastly conversation, and his flagitious caresses, that had such influence with you, that no care for or thought of your own fortunes ever touched your mind? You see, O judges, what sort of conflagration, and how vast a torrent of collectors spread itself with violence, not only over the fields but also over all the other property of the cultivators; not only over the property, but also over the rights of liberty and of the state. You see some men suspended from trees; others beaten and scourged; others kept as prisoners in the public place; others left standing alone at a feast; others condemned by the physician and crier of the praetor; and nevertheless the property of all of them is carried off from the fields and plundered at the same time. What is all this? Is this the rule of the Roman people? Are these the laws of the Roman people? are these their tribunals? are these their faithful allies? is this their suburban province? Are not rather all these things such that even Athenio would not have done them if he had been victorious in Sicily? I say, O judges, that the evidence of fugitive slaves would not have equalled one quarter of the wickedness of that man.

   XXVII. In this manner did he behave to individuals. What more shall I say? How were cities treated in their public capacity? You have heard many statements and testimonies from some cities, and you shall hear them from the rest. And first of all, listen to a brief tale concerning the people of Agyrium, a loyal and illustrious people. The state of Agyrium is among the first in all Sicily for honor;--a state of men wealthy before this man came as praetor, and of excellent cultivators of the soil. When this same Apronius had purchased the tenths of that district, he came to Agyrium; and when he had come thither with his regular attendants--that is to say, with threats and violence,--he began to ask an immense sum, so that when he had got his profit, he might depart. He said that he did not wish to have any trouble, but that, when he had got his money, he would depart as soon as possible to some other city. All the Sicilians are not contemptible men, if only our magistrates leave them alone; but they are many, of sufficient courage, and very economical and temperate, and among the very first is this city of which I am now speaking, O judges. Therefore the men of Agyrium make answer to this most worthless man, that they will give him the tenths which are due from them, that they will not add to them any profit for himself, especially since he had bought them an excellent bargain. Apronius informs Verres, whose business it really was, what was going on.

   XXVIII. Immediately, as if there had been some conspiracy at Agyrium formed against the republic, or as if the lieutenant of the praetor had been assaulted, the magistrates and five principal citizens are summoned from Agyrium at his command. They went to Syracuse. Apronius is there. He says that those very men who had come had acted contrary to the praetor's edict. They asked, in what? He answered, that he would say in what before the judges. He, that most just man, tried to strike his old terror into the wretched Agyrians; he threatened that he would appoint their judges out of his own retinue. The Agyrians, being very intrepid men, said that they would stand the trial. That fellow put on the tribunal Artemidorus Cornelius, the physician, Valerius, the crier, Tlepolemus, the painter, and judges of that sort; not one of whom was a Roman citizen, but Greek robbers of temples, long since infamous, and now all Corneliuses. The Agyrians saw that whatever charge Apronius brought before those judges, he would very easily prove; but they preferred to be convicted, and so add to his unpopularity and infamy, rather than accede to his conditions and terms. They asked what formula would be given to the judges on which to try them? He answered, "If it appeared that they had acted contrary to the edict," on which formula he said that he should pronounce judgment. They preferred trying the question according to a most unjust formula, and with most profligate judges, rather than come to any settlement with him of their own accord. He sent Timarchides privily to them, to warn them, if they were wise, to settle the matter. They refused. "What, then, will you do? Do you prefer to be convicted each of you in a penalty of fifty thousand sesterces?" They said they did. Then he said out loud, in the hearing of everyone, "Whoever is condemned, shall be beaten to death with rods." On this they began with tears to beg and entreat him to be allowed to give up their cornfields, and all their produce, and their allotments, when stripped of everything, to Apronius, and to depart themselves without insult and annoyance. These were the terms, O judges, on which Verres sold the tenths. Hortensius may say, if he pleases, that Verres sold them at a high price.

   XXIX. This was the condition of the cultivators of the soil while that man was praetor; that they thought themselves exceedingly well off, if they might give up their fields when stripped of everything to Apronius, for they wished to escape the many crosses which were set before their eyes. Whatever Apronius had declared to be due, that they were forced to give, according to the edict. Suppose he declared more was due than the land produced? Just so. How could that be? The magistrates were bound, according to his own edict, to compel the payment. Well, but the cultivators could recover. Yes, but Artemidorus was the judge. What next? What happened if the cultivator had given less than Arponius had demanded? A prosecution of the cultivator to recover a fourfold penalty. Before judges taken from what body? From that admirable retinue of most honorable men in attendance on the praetor. What more? I say that you returned less than the proper number of acres: select judges for the matter which is to be tried, namely, your violation of the edict. Out of what class? Out of the same retinue. What will be the end of it? If you are convicted, (and what doubt can there be about a conviction with those judges?) you must be beaten to death with rods. When these are the rules, these the conditions, will there be anyone so foolish as to think that what was sold were the tenths? Who believes that nine parts were left to the cultivator? Who does not perceive that that fellow considered as his own gain and plunder the property and possessions and fortunes of the cultivators? From fear of the rods the Agyrians said that they would do what they were commanded to.

   XXX. Listen now to what his orders were; and conceal, if you can, that you are aware of what all Sicily well knew, that the praetor himself was the farmer of the tenths, or rather the lord and sovereign of all the allotments in the province. He orders the Agyrians to take the tenths themselves in the name of their city, and to give a compliment to Apronius. If he had bought them at a high price, since you are a man who inquired into the proper price with great diligence, who, as you say, sold them at a high price, why do you think that a compliment ought to be added as a present to the purchaser? Be it so; you did think so. Why did you order them to do it? What is the meaning of taking and appropriating money, for which the law has a hold on you, if this is not it,--I mean the compelling men by force and despotic power against their will to give a compliment to another, that is to say, to give him money? Well, what comes next? If they were ordered to give some small compliment to Apronius, the delight of the praetor's life, suppose that it was given to Apronius, if it seems to you the compliment to Apronius, and not the plunder of the praetor. You order them to take the tenths; to give Apronius a compliment,--thirty-three thousand bushels of wheat. What is this? One city is compelled by the command of the praetor to give to the Roman people out of one district food almost enough to support it for one month. Did you sell the tenths at a high price, when such a compliment was given to the collector? In truth, if you had inquired carefully into the proper price, then when you were selling them, they would rather have given ten thousand bushels more then, than six hundred thousand sesterces afterwards. It seems a great booty. Listen to what follows, and remark it carefully, so as to be the less surprised that the Sicilians, being compelled by their necessity, entreated aid from their patrons, from the consuls, from the senate, from the laws, from the tribunals. To pay Apronius for testing the wheat which was given to him, Verres orders the Agyrians to pay Apronius three sesterces for every bushel [There is a discrepancy here, the Teubner Latin text says one sesterce per bushel, however the Latin text of Ernesti does include III at the end of the sentence, or three sesterces per bushel. -- Webmaster].

   XXXI. What is this? When such a quantity of wheat has been extorted and exacted under the name of a compliment, is money to be exacted besides for testing the wheat? Or could, not only Apronius, but anyone, if corn was to be served out to the army, disapprove of the Sicilian corn, which Verres might have measured on the threshing-floor, if he had liked? That vast quantity of wheat is given and extorted at your command. That is not enough. Money is demanded besides. It is paid. That is too little. For the tenths of barley more money is extorted. You order thirty thousand sesterces to be paid. And so from one city there is extorted by force, by threats, by the despotic power and injustice of the praetor, thirty-three thousand bushels of wheat, and besides that, sixty thousand sesterces! Are these things obscure? Or, even if all the world wished it, can those things be obscure which you did openly, which you ordered in open court, which you extorted when everyone was looking on? concerning which matters the magistrates and five chief men of Agyrium, whom you summoned from their homes for the sake of your own gain, reported your acts and commands to their own senate at home; and that report, according to their laws, was recorded in the public registers, and the ambassadors of the Agyrians, most noble men, are at Rome, and have deposed to these facts in evidence. Examine the public letters of the Agyrians; after that the public testimony of the city. Read the public letters.

[The public letters are read.]

Read the public evidence.

[The public evidence is read.]

You have remarked in this evidence, O judges, that Apollodorus, whose surname is Pyragrus, the chief man of his city, gave his evidence with tears, and said that since the name of the Roman people had been heard by and known to the Sicilians, the Agyrians had never either said or done anything contrary to the interests of even the meanest of the roman citizens; but that now they are compelled by great injuries and great suffering to give evidence in a public manner against a praetor of the Roman people. You cannot, in truth, Verres, invalidate the evidence of this one city by your defense; so great a weight is there in the fidelity of these men, such great indignation is there at their injuries, such great conscientiousness is there in the way in which they gave their evidence. But it is not one city alone, but every city, that now being crushed by similar distresses pursues you with deputations and public evidence.

   There is a somewhat major discrepancy that occurs in the next several chapters concerning the quantities of barley and wheat that was extorted by Apronius, both in tenths due to Rome, and in the gifts Verres threatened the various towns into giving Apronius and himself. The discrepancy is that the manuscripts Teubner and Loeb use as their Latin source consistently appear to use the term modium as the measure of corn and barley. Modium is equal to a peck, or one-sixth of a bushel. The Ernesti Latin text, however, has consistently printed the word medimnum, which translates to one full bushel. Since both version have the same numbers this represents a sixfold difference, which is certainly a significant one. It is unknown by this webmaster if the manuscript(s) Ernesti used did indeed use medimnum, or if Ernesti replaced modium with medimnum to ensure consistency throughout this book of Cicero's text. From a practical standpoint, if one believes Cicero's assertion that Apronius and Verres extortionate demands were stripping provinces bare of even enough food for the natives to survive, (and indeed there is no reason not to, given the supporting testimony of Sicilian witnesses,) then amounts using the measure of bushels are more likely. As a former farm owner, this webmaster can assure those unfamiliar with farming that these amounts in bushels are certainly credible for a town, district, and province. The reader should note the single farmer Cicero discussed above who was ordered to pay 700 bushels from farming 50 acres. As this only means 14 bushels/acre, and assuming this represents 2 or 3 times the one-tenth the farmer owed as a tithe to Rome, this webmaster believes that the reader should be able to see how total harvests achieving amounts of 70 to 80 bushels/acre are indeed possible, especially since today's farmers are able to achieve harvest rates from 250 to 450 bushels/acre, depending on the grain, with the only major differences between today's farmers and ancient farmers being types of fertilizer used, and irrigation techniques. Although this website has used the Teubner for the Latin, and as such used modium for the grain measure, I have altered the English text to use bushel and will hopefully remember to change the Latin to match in the near future. The one unresolvable ambiguity lies in when Cicero discusses the amount a collector bid for collecting from a town or district, and then states that the town was forced to give a gift so much larger than that owed. This webmaster is left unsure as to whether the gift amount included the amount owed, or was taken above and beyond that amount. Also please note that although this webmaster has tried to change every instance where the translator Yonge used the word corn, since corn is a North American grain, not a Mediterranean one, it should read wheat instead of corn.--Webmaster.

   XXXII. Let us now, in regular order, proceed to see in what way the city of Herbita, an honorable and formerly a wealthy city, was harassed and plundered by him. A city of what sort of men? Of excellent agriculturists, men most remote from courts of law, from tribunals, and from disputes; whom you, you most profligate of men, ought to have spared, whose interests you ought to have consulted, the whole race of whom you ought most carefully to have preserved. In the first year of your praetorship the tenths of that district were sold for eighteen thousand bushels of wheat. When Atidius, who was also his servant in the matter of tenths, had purchased them, and when he had come to Herbita with the title of prefect, attended by the slaves of Verres, and when a place where he might lodge had been assigned him by the public act of the city, the people of Herbita are compelled to give him as a profit thirty-seven thousand bushels of wheat, when the tenths of the wheat had been sold at eighteen thousand. And they are compelled to give this vast quantity of wheat in the name of their city, since the private cultivators of the soil had already fled from their lands, having been plundered and driven away by the injuries of the collectors. In the second year, when Apronius had bought the tenths of wheat for twenty-five thousand bushels, and when he himself had come to Herbita with his whole force and his whole band of robbers, the people was compelled to give him in the name of the city a present of twenty-six thousand bushels of wheat, and a further gift of two thousand sesterces. I am not quite sure about this further gift, whether it was not given to Apronius himself as wages for his trouble, and a reward for his impudence. But considering such an immense quantity of wheat, who can doubt that it came to that robber of corn, Verres, just as the wheat of Agyrium did? But in the third year he adopted in this district the custom of sovereigns.

   XXXIII. They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians and Syrians are accustomed to have several wives, and to give to these wives cities in this fashion;--that this city is to dress the woman's waist, that one to dress her neck, that to dress her hair; and so they have whole nations not only privy to their lusts, but also assistants in it. Learn that the licentiousness and lust of that man who thought himself king of the Sicilians, was much the same. The name of the wife of Aeschrio, a Syracusan, is Pippa, whose name has been made notorious all over Sicily by that man's profligacy, and many verses were inscribed on the praetor's tribunal, and over the praetor's head, about that woman. This Aeschrio, the imaginary husband of Pippa, is appointed as a new farmer of the tenths of Herbita. When the men of Herbita saw that if the business got into Aeschrio's hands they should be plundered at the will of a most dissolute woman, they bid against him as far as they thought that they could go. Aeschrio bid on, for he was not afraid that, while Verres was praetor, the woman, who would be really the farmer, would ever be allowed to lose by it. The tenths are knocked down to him at thirty-five thousand bushels, nearly half as much again as they had fetched the preceding year. The cultivators were utterly destroyed, and so much the more because in the preceding year they had been drained dry, and almost ruined. He was aware that they [the tenths] had been sold at so high a price, that more could not be squeezed out of the people; so he deducts from the sum total three thousand six hundred bushels, and enters on the registers thirty-one thousand four hundred bushels.

   XXXIV. Docimus had bought the tenths of barley belonging to the same district. This Docimus is the man who had brought to Verres Tertia, the daughter of Isidorus the actor, having taken her from a Rhodian flute-player. The influence of this woman Tertia was greater with him than that of Pippa, or of all the other women, and I had almost said, was as great in his Sicilian praetorship as that of Chelidon had been in his city praetorship. There come to Herbita the two rivals of the praetor, not likely to be troublesome to him, infamous agents of most abandoned women. They begin to demand, to beg, to threaten; but though they wished it, they were not able to imitate Apronius. The Sicilians were not so much afraid of Sicilians; still, as they put forth false accusations in every possible way, the Herbitenses undertake to appear in court at Syracuse. When they had arrived there, they are compelled to give to Aeschrio--that is, to Pippa-- as much as had been deducted from the original purchase-money, three thousand six hundred bushels of wheat. He was not willing to give to the woman who was really the farmer too much profits out of the tenths, lest in that case she should transfer her attention from her noctural gains to the farming of the tributes. The people of Herbita thought the matter was settled, when that man added,--"And what are you going to give out of the barley to my little friend Docimus? What are your intentions?" He transacted all the business, O judges, in his chamber, and in his bed. They said that they had no commission to give anything. "I do not hear you; pay him fifteen thousand sesterces." What were the wretched men to do? or how could they refuse? especially when they saw the traces of the woman who was the collector fresh in the bed, by which they understood that he had been inflamed to persevere in his demand. And so one city of our allies and friends was made tributary of two most debauched women while Verres was praetor. And I now assert that that quantity of wheat and those sums of money were given by the people of Herbita to the collectors in the name of the city. And yet by all that wheat and all that money they could not deliver their fellow-citizens from the injuries of the collectors. For after the property of the cultivators was destroyed and carried off, bribes were still to be given to the collectors to induce them to depart at length from their lands and from their cities. And so when Philinus of Herbita, a man eloquent and prudent, and noble in his own city, spoke in public of the distress of the cultivators, and of their flight, and of the scanty numbers that were left behind, you remarked, O judges, the groans of the Roman people, a great crowd of whom has always been present at this cause. And concerning the scanty number of the cultivators I will speak at another time.

   XXXV. But at this moment a topic, which I had almost passed over, must not be altogether forgotten. For, in the name of the immortal gods! how will you, I will not say tolerate, but how will you bear even to hear of the sums which Verres subtracted from the sum total? Up to this time there has been one man only since the first foundation of Rome, (and may the immortal gods grant that there may never be another,) to whom the republic wholly committed herself, being compelled by the necessities of the times and domestic misfortunes. He had such power, that without his consent no one could preserver either his property, or his liberty, or his life. He had such courage in his audacity, that he was not afraid to say so in the public assembly, when he was selling the property of Roman citizens, that he was selling his own booty. All his actions we not only still maintain, but out of fear of greater inconveniences and calamities, we defend them by the public authority. One decree alone of his has been remodelled by a resolution of the senate, and a decree has been passed, that these men, from the sum total of whose debts he had made a deduction, should pay the money into the treasury. The senate laid down this principle,--that even he to whom they had entrusted everything had not power to diminish the total amount of revenue acquired and procured by the valor of the Roman people. The conscript fathers decided that he had no power to remit even to the bravest men any portion of their debts to the state. And shall the senators decide that you have lawfully remitted any to a most profligate woman? The man, concerning whom the Roman people had established a law that his absolute will should be the law to the Roman people, still is found fault with in this one particular, out of reverence for their ancient laws. Did you, who were liable to almost every law, think that your lust and caprice was to be a law to you? He is blamed for remitting a part of that money which he himself had acquired. Shall you be pardoned who have remitted part of the revenue due to the Roman people?

   XXXVI. And in this description of boldness he proceeded even much more shamelessly with respect to the tenths of the district of Segesta; for when he had knocked them down to this same Docimus, for five thousand bushels of wheat, and had added as an extra present fifteen thousand sesterces, he compelled the people of Segesta to take them of Docimus at the same price in the name of their city; and you shall have this proved by the public testimony of the Segestans. Read the public testimony.

[The public testimony is read.]

You have heard at what price the city took the tenths from Docimus,--at five thousand bushel of wheat, and an extra gift. Learn now at what price he entered them in his accounts as having been sold.

[The law respecting the sale of tithes, Gaius Verres being the praetor, is read.]

You see that in this item three thousand bushels of wheat are deducted from the sum total, and when he had taken all this from the food of the Roman people, from the sinews of the revenue, from the blood of its treasury, he gave it to Tertia the actress. Shall I call it rather an impudent action, to extort from allies of the state, or an infamous one to give it to a prostitute? or a wicked one to take it away from the Roman people, or an audacious one to make false entries in the public accounts? Can any influence or any bribery deliver you from the severity of these judges? And if it should deliver you, do you not still see that the things which I am mentioning belong to another count of the prosecution, and to the action for peculation? Therefore I will reserve the whole of that class of offenses, and return to the charge respecting the wheat and the tenths which I had begun to speak of.
   While this man was laying waste the largest and most fertile districts by his own agency, that is to say by Apronius, that second Verres, he had others whom he could send, like hounds, among the lesser cities, worthless and infamous men, to whom he compelled the citizens to give either wheat or money in the name of their city.

   XXXVII. There is a man called Aulus Valentius in Sicily, an interpreter, whom Verres used to employ not only as an interpreter of the Greek language, but also in his robberies and other crimes. This interpreter, an insignificant and needy man, becomes on a sudden a farmer of tenths. He purchases the tenths of the territory of Lipara, a poor and barren district, for six hundred bushels of wheat. The people of Lipara are convoked; they are compelled to take the tenths, and to pay Valerius thirty thousand sesterces as profit. O ye immortal gods! which argument will you take for your defense; that you sold the tenths for so much less than you might have done,--that the city immediately, of its own accord, added to the six hundred bushels thirty thousand sesterces as a compliment, that is to say, two thousand bushels of wheat? or that, after you had sold the tenths at a high price, you still extorted this money from the people of Lipara against their will? But why do I ask of you what defense you are going to employ, instead of rather asking the city itself what have you done. Read the public testimony of the Liparans, and after that read how the money was given to Valentius.

[The public testimony is read.]
[The statement how the money was paid, extracted out of the public accounts, is read.]

Was even this little state, so far removed out of your reach and out of your sight, separated from Sicily, placed on a barren and uncultivated island, turned as a sort of crown to all your other iniquities, into a sounce of plunder and profit to you in this matter of wheat? You had given the whole island to one of your companions as a trifling present, and still were these profits from wheat exacted from it as from the island states? And therefore the men who for so many years, before you came as praetor, were in the habit of ransoming their lands from the pirates, now had a price set on themselves, and were compelled to ransom themselves from you.

   XXXVIII. What more need I say? Was not more extorted, under the name of a compliment, from the people of Tissa, a very small and poor city, but inhabited by very hard-working agriculturists and most frugal men, than the whole crop of wheat which they had extracted from their land? Among them you sent as farmer Diognotus, a slave of Venus, a new class of collector altogether. Why, with such a precedent as this, are not the public slaves at Rome also entrusted with the revenues? In the second year of your praetorship the Tissans are compelled against their will to give twenty-one thousand sesterces as a compliment. In the third year they were compelled to give thirty thousand bushels of wheat to Diognotus, a slave of Venus, as a compliment! This Diognotus, who is making such vast profits out of the public revenues, has no deputy, no peculium at all. Doubt now, if you can, whether this Venereal officer of Verres received such an immense quantity of wheat for himself, or exacted it for his master. And learn this also from the public testimony of the Tissans.

[The public testimony of the Tissans is read.]

Is it only obscurely, O judges, that the praetor himself is the farmer, when his officers exact wheat from the city, levy money on them, take something more as a compliment for themselves than they are to pay over to the Roman people under the name of tenths? This was your idea of equity in your command--this was your idea of the dignity of the praetor, to make the slaves of Venus the lords of the Sicilian people. This was the line drawn, these were the distinctions of rank, while you were praetor, that the cultivators of the soil were to be considered in the class of slaves, the slaves in the light of farmers of the revenue.

   XXXIX. What more shall I say? Were not the wretched people of Amestratus, after such vast tenths had been imposed upon them, that they had nothing left for themselves, still compelled to pay money besides? The tenths are knocked down to Marcus Caesius in the presence of deputies from Amestratus, and Heraclius, one of their deputies, is compelled at once to pay twenty-two thousand sesterces. What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this booty? of this violence? of this plundering of the allies? If Heraclius had been commissioned by his senate to purchase the tenths, he would have purchased them; if he was not, how could he pay money of his own accord? He reports to his fellow-citizens that he has paid Caesius this money. Learn his report from his letters. Read extracts from the public letters.

[The public letters are read.]

By what decree of the senate was this permission given to the deputy? By none. Why did he do so? He was compelled. Who says this? The whole city. Read the public testimony.

[The public testimony is read.]

By the same evidence you see that there was extorted from the same city in the second year a sum of money in a similar manner, and given to Sextus Vennonius. But you compel the Amestratines, needy men, after you have sold their tenths for eight hundred bushel to Banobalis, a slave of Venus, (just notice the names of the farmers,) to add more still as a compliment, than they had been sold for, though they had been sold at a high price. They gave Banobalis eight hundred bushels of wheat, and fifteen hundred sesterces. Surely that man would never have been so senseless, as to allow more wheat to be given out of the domain of the Roman people to a slave of Venus than to the Roman people itself, unless all that plunder had, under the name of the slave, come in reality to himself. The people of Petra, though their tenths had been sold at a high price, were, very much against their will, compelled to give thirty-seven thousand sesterces to Publius Naevius Turpio, a most infamous man, who was convicted of assault while Sacerdos was praetor. Did you sell the tenths so carelessly, that, when a bushel cost 15 sesterces, and when the tenths were sold for three thousand bushels, that is, for forty-five thousand sesterces, still three thousand sesterces could be given to the farmer as a compliment? "Oh, but I sold the tenths of that district at a high price" he boasts forsooth, not that a compliment was given to Turpio, but that money was taken from the Petrans.

   XL. What shall I say next? The Halicyans, the settlers among whom pay tenths, themselves have their lands free from taxes. Were they not also compelled to give to the same Turpio fifteen thousand sesterces, when their tenths had been sold for a hundred bushels? If, as you are especially anxious to do, you could prove that these compliments all went to the farmers, and that none of them reached you, still these sums, taken and extorted as they were by your violence and injustice, ought to ensure your conviction; but, as you cannot persuade anyone that you were so foolish as to wish Apronius and Turpio, two slaves, to become rich at your own risk and that of your children, do you think that anyone will doubt that through the instrumentality of those emissaries all this money was really procured for you? Again, Symmachus, a slave of Venus, is sent as farmer to Segesta, a city exempt from such taxes; he brings letters from Verres, to order the cultivators to appear in court of some other city than their own, contrary to every resolution of the senate, to all their rights and privileges, and to the Rupilian law. Hear the letters which he sent to the Segestans.

[The letters of Gaius Verres are read.]

Now learn by one bargain made with an honorable and respected man, how this slave of Venus insulted the cultivators of the soil; for there are other instances of this sort. There is a man of the name of Diocles, a citizen of Panormus, surnamed Phimes, an illustrious man, and of high reputation as an agriculturist; he rented a farm in the Segestan district, (for there are no traders in that place,) for six thousand sesterces; after having been assaulted by this slave of Venus, he settled with him to give him sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-four sesterces. You may learn this from Verres' own accounts.

[The items entered under the name of Diocles of Panormus are read.]

Anneius Brocchus also, a senator, a man of a reputation, and of a virtue with which you are all acquainted, was compelled to give money also besides wheat to this same Symmachus. Was such a man, a senator of the Roman people, a subject of profit to a slave of Venus, while you were praetor?

   XLI. Even if you were not aware that this body excelled all others in dignity, were you not at least aware of this, that it furnished the judges? Previously, when the equestrian order furnished the judges, infamous and rapacious magistrates in the provinces were subservient to the farmers; they honored all who were in their employ; every Roman knight whom they saw in the province they pursued with attentions and courtesies; and that conduct was not so advantageous to the guilty, as it was a hindrance to many if they had acted in any respect contrary to the advantage or inclination of that body. This sort of principle was somehow or other diligently preserved among them as if by common consent, that whoever had thought any Roman knight deserving of any affront, was to be considered by their whole order as deserving of every possible misfortune. Did you so despise the order of senators, did you so reduce everything to the standard of your own insults and caprices, had you so deliberated and fixed it in your own mind as an invariable rule, to reject as judges everyone who dwelt in Italy, or who had been in Sicily while you were praetor, that it never occurred to you that still you must come before judges of the same order? in whose minds, even if there were no indignation from any personal injury done to themselves, still there would be this thought, that they were affronted in the affront offered to another, and that the dignity of their order was contemptuously treated and trampled on, which, O judges, appears to me not to be endured with patience, for insult has in it a sting which modest and virtuous men can with difficulty put up with. You have plundered the Sicilians, for indeed the provincials are accustomed to obtain no revenge amid their wrongs. You have harassed the brokers, for they seldom come to Rome, and never of their own accord. You gave up a Roman knight to the ill-treatment of Apronius. To be sure; for what harm can they do to you now, when they cannot be judges? What will you say when you treat senators also with the greatest violence? what else can you say but this, "Give me up that senator also, in order that the most honorable name of senator may appear to exist not only to excite the envy of the ignorant, but also to attract the insults of the worthless." Nor did he do this in the case of Anneius alone, but in the instance of every senator, so that the name of that order had not so much influence in procuring honor as insult for its members. In the case of Gaius Cassius, a most illustrious and most gallant man, though he was consul at that very time, in the first year of his praetorship, he behaved with such injustice, that, as his wife, a woman of the highest respectability, had lands in Leontini, inherited from her father, he ordered all her crops to be taken away for tenths. You shall have him as a witness in this cause, Verres, since you have taken care not to have him as a judge; but you, O judges, ought to think that there is some community of interests, some close connection existing between the members of our body; many offices are imposed on this our order, many toils, many dangers, not only from the laws and courts of justice, but also from vague reports, and from the critical character of the times; so that this order is, as it were, exposed to view, and set on an eminence, in order, as it seems, to be the more easily caught by every blast of envy. In so miserable and unfair a condition of life, shall we not retain even the honor of not appearing vile and contemptible in the eyes of our own magistrates, when we appear before them to obtain our rights?

   XLII. The men of Thermae sent agents to purchase the tenths of their district. They thought it was much better for them, that they should be purchased by their own state at ever so high a price, than that they should get into the hands of some emissary of his. A man of the name of Venuleius had been put up to buy them. He did not cease from bidding. They went on competing with him, as long as the price appeared such as could by any possibility be borne. At last they gave up bidding. They are knocked down to Venuleius at eight thousand pecks of wheat. Possidorus, the deputy of Thermae, sends notice home. Although it appeared to everyong a most intolerable hardship, still there were given to Venuleius eight thousand pecks of wheat, and two thousand sesterces besides, not to come near them. From which it is very evident which part was the wages of the farmer, and which the booty of the praetor. Give me the letters and testimony of the people of Thermae.

[The accounts of the people of Thermae, and their evidence, are read.]

   You compelled the Imacharans after you had taken away all their wheat, after they had been impoverished by your incessant injuries, and ruined as they were, to pay tribute so as to give Apronius twenty thousand sesterces. Read the decree about the tribute, and the public testimony.

[The Resolutions of the Senate about the tribute to be paid, is read.]
[The testimony of the Imacharans is read.]

   The people of Enna, though the tenths of the territory of Enna had been sold for three thousand two hundred bushels, were compelled to give Apronius eighteen thousand bushels of wheat, and three thousand sesterces. I entreat you to remark what an enormous quantity of grain is extorted from every district liable to the payment of tenths; for my speech extends over every city which is so liable. And I am at present engaged about this class of injuries, O judges, in which it is not a case of single cultivators being stripped of all their property, but of compliments being exacted from the public treasury of each city, for the farmers, in order that at last they may depart from the lands and cities glutted and satiated with this immense heap of gain.

   XLIII. Why in the third year of your praetorship did you order the Calactans to carry the tenths of their land, which they had been accustomed to pay at Calacta, to Marcus Caesius the farmer of Amestratus, a thing which they had never done before you were praetor, and which you yourself had never ordered in the two years preceding? Why was Theomnastus the Syracusan sent by you into the district of Mutyca, where he so harassed the cultivators, that for their second tenths they were unavoidably forced to buy wheat, because they had actually none of their own, (a thing which I shall prove happened also in the case of other cites). But now, from the agreements made with the people of Hybla, which were made with the farmer Gnaeus Sergius, you will perceive that six times as much wheat as was sown was exacted of the cultivators. Read the accounts of the sowings and the