Divinatio in Q. Caecilium

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.

I now beforehand give this man notice, that if you determine that this cause shall be conducted by me, his whole plan of defence must be altered, and must be altered in such a manner as to be carried on in a more honest and honourable way than he likes; that he must imitate those most illustrious men whom he himself has seen, Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius; who thought that they had no right to bring anything to the trials and causes in which their friends were concerned, except good faith and ability. He shall have no room for thinking, if I conduct the case, that the tribunal can be corrupted without great danger to many.

In this trial I think that the cause of the Sicilian nation,—that the cause of the whole Roman people, is undertaken by me; so that I have not to crush one worthless man alone, which is what the Sicilians have requested, but to extinguish and extirpate every sort of iniquity, which is what the Roman people has been long demanding. And how far I labour in this cause, or what I may be able to effect, I would rather leave to the expectations of others, than set forth in my own oration.

But as for you, O Caecilius, what can you do? On what occasion, or in what affair, have you, I will not say given proof to others of your powers! but even made trial of yourself to yourself? Has it never occurred to you how important a business it is to uphold a public cause? to lay bare the whole life of another? and to bring it palpably before, not only the minds of the judges, but before the very eyes and sight of all men; to defend the safety of the allies, the interests of the provinces, the authority of the laws, and the dignity of the judgment-seat? Judge by me, since this is the first opportunity of learning it that you have ever had, how many qualities must meet in that man who is the accuser of another: and if you recognise any one of these in yourself, I will, of my own accord, yield up to you that which you are desirous of. First of all, he must have a singular integrity and innocence. For there is nothing which is less tolerable than for him to demand an account of his life from another who cannot give an account of his own. Here I will not say any more of yourself.

This one thing, I think, all may observe, that up to this time you had no opportunity of becoming known to any people except to the Sicilians; and that the Sicilians say this, that even though they are exasperated against the same man, whose enemy you say that you are, still, if you are the advocate, they will not appear on the trial. Why they refuse to, you will not hear from me. Allow these judges to suspect what it is inevitable that they must. The Sicilians, indeed, being a race of men over-acute, and too much inclined to suspiciousness, suspect that you do not wish to bring documents from Sicily against Verres; but, as both his praetorship and your quaestorship are recorded in the same documents, they suspect that you wish to remove [*](The Latin is deportare and asportare, the former meaning to remove from one place to another, the latter to carry away; “but it seems by implication here, to carry them away with the intention of suppressing them.”—Long.) them out of Sicily.

In the second place, an accuser must be trustworthy and veracious. Even if I were to think that you were desirous of being so, I easily see that you are not able to be so. Nor do I speak of these things, which, if I were to mention, you would not be able to invalidate, namely that you, before you departed from Sicily, had become reconciled to Verres; that Potamo, your secretary and intimate friend, was retained by Verres in the province when you left it; that Marcus Caecilius, your brother, a most exemplary and accomplished young man, is not only not present here and does not stand by you while prosecuting your alleged injuries, but that he is with Verres, and is living on terms of the closest friendship and intimacy with him. These, and other things belonging to you, are many signs of a false accuser; but these I do not now avail myself of. I say this, that you, if you were to wish it ever so much, still cannot be a faithful accuser.

For I see that there are many charges in which you are so implicated with Verres, that in accusing him, you would not dare to touch upon them. All Sicily complains that Caius Verres, when he had ordered corn to be brought into his granary for him, and when a bushel of wheat was two sesterces, demanded of the farmers twelve sesterces a bushel for wheat. [*](The praetor had the power to make an annual demand on the farmers for corn for be state, and the quaestor was to pay a fair market price for it; but in some cases the praetor allowed or compelled the farmer to pay a composition in money, instead of delivering corn, and Verres when the market price of wheat was only two sesterces a bushel compelled the farmers to pay twelve sesterces a bushel by way of composition) It was a great crime, an immense sum, an impudent theft, an intolerable injustice. I must inevitably convict him of this charge; what will you do, O Caecilius?

Will you pass over this serious accusation, or will you bring it forward? If you bring it forward, will you charge that as a crime against another, which you did yourself at the same time in the same province? Will you dare so to accuse another, that you cannot avoid at the same time condemning yourself? If you omit the charge, what sort of a prosecution will yours be, which from fear of danger to yourself, is afraid not only to create a suspicion of a most certain and enormous crime, but even to make the least mention of it? Corn was bought, on the authority of a decree of the senate, of the Sicilians while Verres was praetor;

for which corn all the money was not paid. This is a grave charge against Verres; a grave one if I plead the cause, but, if you are the prosecutor, no charge at all. For you were the quaestor, you had the handling of the public money; and, even if the praetor desired it ever so much, yet it was to a great extent in your power to prevent anything being taken from it. Of this crime, therefore, if you are the prosecutor, no mention will be made. And so during the whole trial nothing will be said of his most enormous and most notorious thefts and injuries. Believe me, O Caecilius, he who is connected with the criminal in a partnership of iniquity, cannot really defend his associates while accusing him.

The contractors exacted money from the cities instead of corn. Well! was this never done except in the praetorship of Verres? I do not say that, but it was done while Caecilius was quaestor. What then will you do? Will you urge against this man as a charge, what you both could and ought to have prevented from being done? or will you leave out the whole of it? Verres, then, at his trial will absolutely never hear at all of those things, which, when he was doing them, he did not know how he should be able to defend. And I am mentioning those matters which lie on the surface. There are other acts of plunder more secret, which he, in order, I suppose, to check the courage and delay the attack of Caecilius, has very kindly participated in with his quaestor.

You know that information of these matters has been given to me; and if I were to choose to mention them, all men would easily perceive that there was not only a perfect harmony of will subsisting between you both, but that you did not pursue even your plunder separately. So that if you demand to be allowed to give information of the crimes which Verres has committed in conjunction with you, I have no objection, if it is allowed by the law. But if we are speaking of conducting the prosecution, that you must yield ta those who are hindered by no crimes of their own from being able to prove the offences of another.

And see how much difference there will be between my accusation and yours. I intend to charge Verres with all the crimes that you committed, though he had no share in them, because he did not prevent you from committing them, though he had the supreme power; you, on the other hand, will not allege against him even the crimes which he committed himself, lest you should be found to be in any particular connected with him. What shall I say of these other points, O Caecilius? Do these things appear contemptible to you, without which no cause, especially no cause of such importance, can by any means be supported? Have you any talent for pleading? any practice in speaking? Have you paid any attention or acquired any acquaintance with the forum, the courts, and the laws?

I know in what a rocky and difficult path I am now treading; for as all arrogance is odious, so a conceit of one's abilities and eloquence is by far the most disagreeable of all. On which account I say nothing of my own abilities; for I have none worth speaking of, and if I had I would not speak of them. For either the opinion formed of me is quite sufficient for me, such as it is; or if it be too low an opinion to please me, still I cannot make it higher by talking about them.

I will just, O Caecilius, say this much familiarly to you about yourself, forgetting for a moment this rivalry and contest of ours. Consider again and again what your own sentiments are, and recollect yourself; and consider who you are, and what you are able to effect. Do you think that, when you have taken upon yourself the cause of the allies, and the fortunes of the province, and the rights of the Roman people, and the dignity of the judgment-seat and of the law, in a discussion of the most important and serious matters, you are able to support so many affairs and those so weighty and so various with your voice, your memory, your counsel, and your ability?

Do you think that you are able to distinguish in separate charges, and in a well-arranged speech, all that Caius Verres has done in his quaestorship, and in his lieutenancy, and in his praetorship, at Rome, or in Italy, or in Achaia, or in Asia Minor, or in Pamphylia, as the actions themselves are divided by place and time? Do you think that you are able (and this is especially necessary against a defendant of this sort) to cause the things which he has done licentiously, or wickedly, or tyrannically, to appear just as bitter and scandalous to those who hear of them, as they did appear to those who felt them?

Those things which I am speaking of are very important, believe me. Do not you despise this either; everything must be related, and demonstrated, and explained; the cause must be not merely stated, but it must also be gravely and copiously dilated on. You must cause, if you wish really to do and to effect anything, men not only to hear you, but also to hear you willingly and eagerly. And if nature kind been bountiful to you in such qualities, and if from your childhood you had studied the best arts and systems, and worked hard at them;—if you had learnt Greek literature at Athens, not at Lilybaeum, and Latin literature at Rome, and not in Sicily; still it would be a great undertaking to approach so important a cause, and one about which there is such great expectation, and having approached it, to follow it up with the requisite diligence; to have all the particulars always fresh in your memory; to discuss it properly in your speech, and to support it adequately with your voice and your faculties.

Perhaps you may say, What then? Are you then endowed with all these qualifications?—I wish indeed that I were; but at all events I have laboured with great industry from my very childhood to attain them. And if I, on account of the importance and difficulty of such a study have not been able to attain them, who have done nothing else all my life, how far do you think that you must be distant from these qualities, which you have not only never thought of before, but which even now, when you are entering on a stage that requires them all, you can form no proper idea of, either as for their nature or as to their importance?