Divinatio in Q. Caecilium

The next thing is, since it is evident that the Sicilians have demanded this of me, for us to inquire whether it is right that this fact should have any influence on you and on your judgments; whether the allies of the Roman people, your suppliants, ought to have any weight with you in a matter of extortion committed on themselves. And why need I say much on such a point as this? as if there were any doubt that the whole law about extortion was established for the sake of the allies.

For when citizens have been robbed of their money, it is usually sought to be recovered by civil action and by a private suit. This is a law affecting the allies,—this is a right of foreign nations. They have this fortress somewhat less strongly fortified now than it was formerly, but still if there be any hope left which can console the minds of the allies, it is all placed in this law. And strict guardians of this law have long since been required, not only by the Roman people, but by the most distant nations.

Who then is there who can deny that it is right that the trial should be conducted according to the wish of those men for whose sake the law has been established? All Sicily, if it could speak with one voice, would say this:—“All the gold, all the silver, all the ornaments which were in my cities, in my private houses, or in my temples,—all the rights which I had in any single thing by the kindness of the senate and Roman people,—all that you, O Caius Verres, have taken away and robbed me of, on which account I demand of you a hundred million of sesterces according to the law.” If the whole province, as I have said, could speak, it would say this, and as it could not speak, it has of its own accord chosen an advocate to urge these points, whom it has thought suitable.

In a matter of this sort, will any one be found so impudent as to dare to approach or to aspire to the conduct of the cause of others against the will of those very people whose affairs are involved in it? If, O Quintus Caecilius, the Sicilians were to say this to you,—we do not know you—we know not who you are, we never saw you before; allow us to defend our fortunes through the instrumentality of that man whose good faith is known to us; would they not be saying what would appear reasonable to every one? But now they say this—that they know both the men, that they wish one of them to be the defender of their cause, that they are wholly unwilling that the other should be.

Even if they were silent they would say plainly enough why they are unwilling. But they are not silent; and yet will you offer yourself, when they are most unwilling to accept you! Will you still persist in speaking in the cause of others? Will you still defend those men who would rather be deserted by every one than defended by you? Will you still promise your assistance to those men who do neither believe that you wish to give it for their sake, nor that, if you did wish it, you could do it? Why do you endeavour to take away from them by force the little hope for the remainder of their fortunes which they still retain, built upon the impartiality of the law and of this tribunal? Why do you interpose yourself expressly against the will of those whom the law directs to be especially consulted? Why do you now openly attempt to ruin the whole fortunes of those of whom you did not deserve very well when in the province? Why do you take away from them, not only the power of prosecuting their rights, but even of bewailing their calamities?

If you are their counsel, whom do you expect to come forward of those men who are now striving, not to punish some one else by your means, but to avenge themselves on you yourself, through the instrumentality of some one or other? But this is a well established fact, that the Sicilians especially desire to have me for their counsel; the other point, no doubt, is less clear,—namely, by whom Verres would least like to be prosecuted! Did any one ever strive so openly for any honour, or so earnestly for his own safety, as that man and his friends have striven to prevent this prosecution from being entrusted to me? There are many qualities which Verres believes to be in me, and which he knows, O Quintus Caecilius, do not exist in you: and what qualities each of us have I will mention presently;

at this moment I will only say this, which you must silently agree to, that there is no quality in me which he can despise, and none in you which he can fear. Therefore, that great defender [*](Cicero alludes to Hortensius, indeed, the name of Hortensius appears in the text in some editions.) and friend of his votes for you and opposes me; he openly solicits the judges to have you preferred to me; and he says that he does this honestly, without any envy of me, and without any dislike to me. “For,” says he, “I am now asking for that which I usually obtain when I strive for it earnestly. I am not asking to have the defendant acquitted; but I am asking this, that he may be accused by the one man rather than by the other. Grant me this; grant that which is easy to grant, and honourable, and by no means invidious; and when you have granted that, you will, without any risk to yourself, and without any discredit, have granted that he shall be acquitted in whose cause I am labouring.”

He says also, in order that some alarm may be mingled with the exertion of his influence, that there are certain men on the bench to whom he wishes their tablets to be shown, and that that is very easy, for that they do not give their votes separately, but that all vote together; and that a tablet, [*](“The judges were provided with three tabellae, one of which was marked with A, i.e. absolvo, I acquit; the second with C, i.e. condemno, condemn; and the third with N L, i.e. non liquet. It is not clear to me, why Cicero (pro Mil. 6) calls the first litera salutaris, and the second litera tristis. It would seem that in some trials the tabellae were marked with the lettera L, libero, and D, damno, respectively.” Smith's Dict. Ant. v. Tabella. In trials like this between Cicero and Caecilius it is probable that the two tabellae had the names of the different candidates inscribed on them. The circumstance alluded to in the text was that a short time before this Terentius Varro had been accused of extortion and defended by Hortensius, who bribed the judges, and then in order to be sure that they voted as they had promised, caused tablets to be given to them smeared with coloured wax, so that he could easily recognize their votes in the balloting urn.) covered with the proper wax, and not with that illegal wax which has given so much scandal, is given to every one. And he does not give himself all this trouble so much for the sake of Verres, as because he disapproves of the whole affair. For he sees that, if the power of prosecuting is taken away from the high-born boys whom he has hitherto played with, and from the public informers, whom he has always despised and thought insignificant (not without good reason), and to be transferred to fearless men of well-proved constancy, he will no longer be able to domineer over the courts of law as he pleases.