In C. Verrem

Therefore, that same fellow whom Cnaeus Dolabella afterwards, when Caius Malleolus had been slain, had for his quaestor, (I know not whether this connection was not even a closer one than the connection with Carbo, and whether the consideration of his having been voluntarily chosen is not stronger than that of his having been chosen by lot,) behaved to Cnaeus Dolabella in the same manner as he had behaved in to Cnaeus Carbo. For, the charges which properly touched himself, he transferred to his shoulders; and gave information of everything connected with his cause to his enemies and accusers. He himself gave most hostile and most infamous evidence against the man to whom he had been lieutenant and pro-quaestor. Dolabella, unfortunate as he was, through his abominable betrayal, through his infamous and false testimony, was injured far more than by either, by the odium created by that fellow's own thefts and atrocities.

What can you do with such a man? or what hope can you allow so perfidious, so ill-omened an animal to entertain? One who despised and trampled on the lot which bound him to Cnaeus Carbo, the choice which connected him with Cnaeus Dolabella, and not only deserted them both, but also betrayed and attacked them. Do not, I beg of you, O judges, judge of his crimes by the brevity of my speech rather than by the magnitude of the actions themselves. For I am forced to make haste in order to have time to set before you all the things which I have resolved to relate to you. Wherefore, now that his quaestorship has been put before you, saw that the dishonesty and wickedness of his first conduct in his first office has been thoroughly seen, listen, I pray you, to the remainder.

And in this I will pass over that period of proscription and rapine which took place under Sulla; nor will I allow him to derive any argument for his own defence from that time of common calamity to all men. I will accuse him of nothing but his own peculiar and well-proved crimes. Therefore, omitting all mention of the time of Sulla from the accusation, consider that splendid lieutenancy of his. After Cilicia was appointed to Cnaeus Dolabella as his province, O ye immortal gods! with what covetousness, with what incessant applications, did he force from him that lieutenancy for himself, which was indeed the beginning of the greatest calamity to Dolabella. For as he proceeded on his journey to the province, wherever he went his conduct was such, that it was not some lieutenant of the Roman people, but rather some calamity that seemed to be going through the country.

In Achaia, (I will omit all minor things, to some of which perhaps some one else may some time or other have done something like; I will mention nothing except what is unprecedented, nothing except what would appear incredible, if it were alleged against any other criminal,) he demanded money from a Sicyonian magistrate. Do not let this be considered a crime in Verres; others have done the tame. When he could not give it, he punished him; a scandalous, but still not an unheard-of act. Listen to the sort of punishment; you will ask, of what race of men you are to think him a specimen. He ordered a fire to be made of green and damp wood in a narrow place. There he left a free man, a noble in his own country, an ally and friend of the Roman people, tortured with smoke, half dead.

After that, what statues, what paintings he carried off from Achaia, I will not mention at present. There is another part of my speech which I have reserved for speaking of this covetousness of the man. You have heard that at Athens a great sum of money was taken out of the temple of Minerva. This was mentioned in the trial of Cnaeus Dolabella. Mentioned? the amount too was stated. Of this design you will find that Caius Verres was not only a partaker, but was even the chief instigator.

He came to Delos. There from that most holy temple of Apollo he privately took away by night the most beautiful and ancient statues, and took care that they were all placed on board his own transport. The next day, when the inhabitants of Delos saw their temple plundered, they were very indignant. For the holiness and antiquity of that temple is so great in their eyes, that they believe that Apollo himself was born in that place. However, they did not dare to say one word about it, lest haply Dolabella himself might be concerned in the business. Then on a sudden a very great tempest arose, O judges; so that Dolabella could not only not depart, when he wished, but could scarcely stand in the city, such vast waves were dashed on shore. Here that ship of that pirate loaded with the consecrated statues, being cast up and driven ashore by the waves, is broken to pieces. Those statues of Apollo were found on the shore; by command of Dolabella they are restored; the tempest is lulled; Dolabella departs from Delos.

I do not doubt, though there was no feeling of humanity ever in you, no regard for holiness, still that now in your fear and danger thoughts of your wicked actions occurred to you. Can there be any comfortable hope of safety cherished by you, when you recollect how impious, how wicked, how blasphemous has been your conduct towards the immortal gods? Did you dare to plunder the Delian Apollo? Did you dare to lay impious and sacrilegious hands on that temple, so ancient, so venerated, so holy? If you were not in your childhood taught and framed to learn and know what has been committed to writing, still would you not afterwards, when you came into the very places themselves, learn and believe what is handed down both by tradition and by documents:

That Latona, after a long wandering and persecution, pregnant, and now near bringing forth, when her time was come, fled to Delos, and there brought forth Apollo and Diana; from which belief of men that island is considered sacred to those gods; and such is and always has been the influence of that religious belief, that not even the Persians, when they waged war on all Greece, on gods and men, and when they had put in with a fleet of a thousand ships at Delos, attempted to violate, or even to touch anything. Did you, O most wicked, O most insane of men, attempt to plunder this temple? Was any covetousness of such power as to extinguish such solemn religious belief? And if you did not think of this at that time, do you not recollect even now that there is no evil so great as not to have been long since due to you for your wicked actions?

But after he arrived in Asia,—why should I enumerate the dinners, the suppers, the horses, and the presents which marked that progress? I am not going to say anything against Verres for everyday crimes. I say that he carried off by force some most beautiful statues from Chios; also from Erythrae; also from Halicarnassus. From Tenedos (I pass over the money which he seized) he carried off Tenes himself, who among the Tenedians is considered a most holy god, who is said to have founded that city, after whose name it is called Tenedos. This very Tenes, I say, most admirably wrought, which you have seen [*](It was allowed to the aediles, and it was not uncommon for them to borrow of the cities of the allies celebrated and beautiful statues to adorn the shows in the games which they exhibited; and afterwards they were restored to their owners.) before now in the assembly, he carried off amid the great lamentations of the city.

But that storming of that most ancient and most noble temple of the Samian Juno, how grievous was it to the Samians! how bitter to all Asia! how notorious to all men! how notorious to every one of you! And when ambassadors had come from Samos into Asia to Caius Nero, to complain of this attack on that temple, they received for answer, that complaints of that sort, which concerned a lieutenant of the Roman people, ought not to be brought before the praetor, but must be carried to Rome. What pictures did he carry off from thence; what statues! which I saw lately in his house, when I went thither for the sake of sealing [*](The custom was for the accuser to put a seal on the house and effects of the man whom he was preparing to prosecute, in order that no evidence of the theft to be imputed might be removed by the removal of the stolen goods.) it up.

And where are those statues now, O Verres? I mean those which I lately saw in your house against every pillar, and also in every space between two pillars, and actually arranged in the grove in the open air? Why were those things left at your house, as long as you thought that another praetor, with the other judges whom you expected to have substituted in the room of these, was to sit in judgment upon your? But when you saw that we preferred suiting the convenience of our own witnesses rather than your convenience as to time, you left not one statue in your house except two which were in the middle of it, and which were themselves stolen from Samos. Did you not think that I would summon your most intimate friends to give evidence of this matter, who had often been at your house, and ask of them whether they knew that statues were there which were not?

What did you think that these men would think of you then, when they saw that you were no longer contending against your accuser, but against the quaestor and the brokers? [*](The quaestores aerarii were sent to take possession in the name of the people of the effects of a man who was convicted; the sectores or brokers attended them to appraise the goods seized.) On [*](In some editions the passage from “Qua de re Charidemum,” to “Non ad se pertinere,” is transferred to the previous chapter, and inserted after “deferri opertere,” but there is not the least reason for this transposition, which is contrary to the authority of every manuscript.) which matter you heard Charidemus of Chios give his evidence at the former pleadings, that he, when he was captain of a trireme, and was attending Verres on his departure from Asia, was with him at Samos, by command of Dolabella and that he then knew that the temple of Juno had been plundered, and the town of Samos; that afterwards he had been put on his trial before the Chians, his fellow citizens, on the accusation of the Samians; and that he had been acquitted because he had made it plain that the allegations of the Samians concerned Verres, and not him.

You know that Aspendus is an ancient and noble town in Pamphylia, full of very fine statues. I do not say that one statue or another was taken away from thence: this I say, that you, O Verres, left not one statue at Aspendus; that everything from the temples and from all public places was openly seized and carried away on wagons, the citizens all looking on. And he even carried off that harp-player of Aspendus, of whom you have often heard the saying, which is a proverb among the Greeks, who used to say that he could sing everything within himself, and put him in the inmost part of his own house, so as to appear to have surpassed the statue itself in trickery.

At Perga we are aware that there is a very ancient and very holy temple of Diana. That too, I say, was stripped and plundered by you; and all the gold which there was on Diana herself was taken off and carried away. What, in the name of mischief, can such audacity and inanity mean? In the very cities of our friends and allies, which you visited under the pretext of your office as lieutenant, if you had stormed them by force with an army, and had exercised military rule there; still, I think, the statues and ornaments which you took away, you would have carried, not to your own house, nor to the suburban villas of your friends, but to Rome for the public use.

Why should I speak of Marcus Marcellus, who took Syracuse, that most beautiful city? why of Lucius Scipio, who waged war in Asia, and conquered Antiochus, a most powerful monarch? why of Flaminius, who subdued Philip the king, and Macedonia? why of Lucius Paullus, who with his might and valour conquered king Perses? why of Lucius Mummius, who overthrew that most beautiful and elegant city Corinth, full of all sorts of riches, and brought many cities of Achaia and Boeotia under the empire and dominion of the Roman people?—their houses, though they were rich in virtue and honour, were empty of statues and paintings. But we see the whole city, the temples of the gods, and all parts of Italy, adorned with their gifts, and with memorials of them.

I am afraid all this may seem to some people too ancient, and long ago obsolete. For at that time all men were so uniformly disposed in the same manner, that this credit of eminent virtue and incorruptibility appears to belong, not only to those men, but also to those times. Publius Servilius, a most illustrious man, who has performed the noblest exploits, is present. He will deliver his opinion on your conduct. He, by his power, had forces; his wisdom and his valour took Olympus, an ancient city, and one strengthened and embellished in every possible manner. I am bringing forward recent example of a most distinguished man. For Servilius, as a general of the Roman people, took Olympus after you, as lieutenant of the quaestor in the same district, had taken care to harass and plunder all the cities of our friends and allies even when they were at peace.

The things which you carried off from the holiest temples with wickedness, and like a robber, we cannot see, except in your own houses, or in those of your friends. The statues and decorations which Publius Servilius brought away from the cities of our enemies, taken by his courage and valour, according to the laws of war and his own rights as commander-in-chief, he brought home for the Roman people; he carried them in his triumph, and took care that a description of them should be engraved on public tablets and hid up in the treasury. You may learn from public documents the industry of that most honourable man. Read—“The accounts delivered by Publius Servilius.” You see not only the number of the statues, but the size, the figure, and the condition of each one among them accurately described in writing. Certainly, the delight arising from virtue and from victory is much greater than that pleasure which is derived from licentiousness and covetousness. I say that Servilius took much more care to have the booty of the Roman people noted and described, than you took to have your plunder catalogued.

You will say that your statues and paintings were also an ornament to the city and forum of the Roman people. I recollect: I, together with the Roman people, saw the forum and place for holding the assemblies adorned with embellishments, in appearance indeed magnificent, but to one's senses and thoughts bitter and melancholy. I saw everything glittering with your thefts, with the plunder of the provinces, with the spoils of our allies and friends. At which time, O judges, that fellow conceived the hope of committing his other crimes. For he saw that these men, who wished to be called the masters of the courts of law, were slaves to these desires.

But the allies and foreign nations then first abandoned the hope of saving any of their property and fortunes, because, as it happened, there were at that time very many ambassadors from Asia and Achaia at Rome, who worshipped in the forum the images of the gods which had been taken from their temples. And so also, when they recognised the other statues and ornaments, they wept, as they beheld the different pieces of their property in different place. And from all those men we then used to hear discourses of this sort:—“That it was impossible for any one to doubt of the ruin of our allies and friends, when men saw in the forum of the Roman people, in which formerly those men used to be accused and condemned who had done any injury to the allies, those things now openly placed which had been wickedly seized and taken away from the allies.”

Here I do not expect that he will deny that he has many statues, and countless paintings. But, as I fancy, he is accustomed at times to say that he purchased these things which he seized and stole; since indeed he was sent at the public expense, and with the title of ambassador, into Achaia, Asia, and Pamphylia as a purchaser of statues and paintings. I have all the accounts both of that fellow and of his father, of money received, which I have most carefully read and arranged; those of your father, as long as he lived, you own, as far as you say that you have made them up. For in that man, O judges, you will find this new thing. We hear that some men have never kept accounts; which is a mistaken opinion of men with respect to Antonius; for he kept them most carefully. But there may be men of that sort, but they are by no means to be approved of. We hear that some men have not kept them from the beginning, but after some time have made them up; there is a way of accounting for this too. But this is unprecedented and absurd which this man gave us for an answer, when we demanded his account of him: “That he kept them up to the consulship of Marcus Terentius and Caius Cassius; but that, after that, he gave up keeping them.”