In C. Verrem

Why need I now speak of the energy of Cnaeus Dolabella at the second hearing of the cause,—of his tears of his agitation of body and minds? Why need I describe the mind of Caius Nero,—a most virtuous and innocent man, but still on some occasions too timid and low spirited?—who in that emergency had no idea what to do, unless, perchance (as every one wished him to do), to settle the matter without the intervention of Verres and Dolabella. Whatever had been done without their intervention all men would approve; but, as it was, the sentence which was given was thought not to have been pronounced judicially by Nero, but to have been extorted by Dolabella. For Philodamus and his son are convicted by a few votes: Dolabella is present; urges and presses Nero to have them executed as speedily as possible, in order that as few as may be may bear of that man's nefarious wickedness.

There is exhibited in the market-place of Laodicea a spectacle bitter, and miserable, and grievous to the whole province of Asia—an aged parent led forth to punishment, and on the other side a son; the one because he had defended the chastity of his children, the other because he had defended the life of his father and the fair fame of his sister. Each was weeping,—the father, not for his own execution, but for that of his son; the son for that of his father. How many tears do you think that Nero himself sheds? How great do you think was the weeping of all Asia? How great the groans and lamentations of the citizens of Lampsacus, that innocent men, nobles, allies and friends of the Roman people, should be put to death by public execution, on account of the unprecedented wickedness and impious desires of one most profligate man?

After this, O Dolabella, no one can pity either you or your children, whom you have left miserable, in beggary and solitude. Was Verres so dear to you, that you should wish the disappointment of his lust to be expiated by the blood of innocent men? Did you leave your army and the enemy, in order by your own power and cruelty to diminish the dangers of that most wicked man? For, had you expected him to be an everlasting friend to you, because you had appointed him to act as your quaestor? Did you not know, that Cnaeus Carbo, the consul whose real quaestor he had been, had not only been deserted by him, but had also been deprived of his resources and his money, and nefariously attacked and betrayed by him? Therefore, you too experienced his perfidy when he joined your enemies,—when he, himself a most guilty man, gave most damaging evidence against you—when he refused to give in his accounts to the treasury unless you were condemned. [*](Dolabella was governor of Cilicia at the time Verres was acting as his lieutenant and proquaestor. On his return from his government he was prosecuted by Scaurus for corruption, and was condemned mainly through the evidence of Verres.)

Are your lusts, O Verres, to be so atrocious, that the provinces of the Roman people, that foreign nations, cannot limit and cannot endure them? Unless whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you desire, whatever you think of, is in a moment to be subservient to your nod, is at once to obey your lust and desire, are men to be sent into people's houses? are the houses to be stormed? Are cities—not only the cities of enemies now reduced to peace—but are the cities of our allies and friends to be forced to have recourse to violence and to arms, in order to be able to repel from themselves and from their children the wickedness and lust of a lieutenant of the Roman people? For I ask of you, were you besieged at Lampsacus? Did that multitude begin to burn the house in which you were staying? Did the citizens of Lampsacus wish to burn a lieutenant of the Roman people alive? You cannot deny it; for I have your own evidence which you gave before Nero,—I have the letters which you sent to him. Recite the passage from his evidence.

[The evidence of Caius Verres against Artemidorus is read.] Recite the passages out of Verres's letters to Nero. [Passages from the letters of Verres to Nero are read.] “Not long afterwards, they came into the house.” Was the city of Lampsacus endeavouring to make war on the Roman people? Did it wish to revolt from our dominion—to cast off the name of allies of Rome? For I see, and, from those things which I have read and heard, I am sure, that, if in any city a lieutenant of the Roman people has been, not only besieged, not only attacked with fire and sword, by violence, and by armed forces, but even to some extent actually injured, unless satisfaction be publicly made for the insult, war is invariably declared and waged against that city.

What, then, was the cause why the whole city of the Lampsacenes ran, as you write yourself, from the assembly to your house? For neither in the letters which you sent to Nero, nor in your evidence, do you mention any reason for so important a disturbance. You say that you were besieged, that fire was applied to your house, that faggots were put round it; you say that your lictor was slain; you say that you did not dare appear in the public streets; but the cause of all this alarm you conceal. For if Rubrius had done any injury to any one on his own account, and not at your instigation and for the gratification of your desires, they would rather have come to you to complain of the injury done by your companion, than have come to besiege you. As, therefore, he himself has concealed what the cause of that disturbance was, and as the witnesses produced by us have related it, do not both their evidence and his own continued silence prove the reason to be that which we have alleged?

Will you then spare this man, O judges? whose offences are so great that they whom he injured could neither wait for the legitimate time to take their revenge, nor restrain to a future time the violence of their indignation. You were besieged? By whom? By the citizens of Lampsacus—barbarous men, I suppose, or, at all events, men who despised the name of the Roman people. Say rather, men, by nature, by custom, and by education most gentle; moreover, by condition, allies of the Roman people, by fortune our subjects, by inclination our suppliants—so that it is evident to all men, that unless the bitterness of the injury and the enormity of the wickedness had been such that the Lampsacenes thought it better to die than to endure it, they never would have advanced to such a pitch as to be more influenced by hatred of your lust—than by fear of your office as lieutenant.

Do not, in the name of the immortal gods, I entreat you—do not compel the allies and foreign nations to have recourse to such a refuge as that; and they must of necessity have recourse to it, unless you chastise such crimes. Nothing would ever have softened the citizens of Lampsacus towards him, except their believing that he would be punished at Rome. Although they had sustained such an injury that they could not sufficiently avenge it by any law in the world, yet they would have preferred to submit their griefs to our laws and tribunals, rather than to give way to their own feelings of indignation. You, when you have been besieged by so illustrious a city on account of your own wickedness and crime—when you have compelled men, miserable and maddened by calamity, as if in despair of our laws and tribunals, to fly to violence, to combat, and to arms—when you have shown yourself in the towns and cities of our friends, not as a lieutenant of the Roman people, but as a lustful and inhuman tyrant—when among foreign nations you have injured the reputation of our dominion and our name by your infamy and your crimes—when you have with difficulty saved yourself from the sword of the friends of the Roman people, and escaped from the fire of its allies, do you think you will find an asylum here? You are mistaken—they allowed you to escape alive that you might fall into our power here, not that you might find rest here.

And you say that a judicial decision was come to that you were injuriously besieged for no reason at Lampsacus, because Philodamus and his son were condemned. What if I show, if I make it evident, by the evidence of a worthless man indeed, but still a competent witness in this matter,—by the evidence of you yourself,—that you yourself transferred the reason of this siege laid to you, and the blame of it, to others? and that those whom you had accused were not punished? Then the decision of Nero will do you but little good. Recite the letters which he sent to Nero. [The letter of Caius Verres to Nero is read.] “Themistagoras and Thessalus.” ... You write that Themistagoras and Thessalus stirred up the people. What people? They who besieged you; who endeavoured to burn you alive. Where do you prosecute them? Where do you accuse them? Where do you defend the name and rights of a lieutenant? Will you say that that was settled by the trial of Philodamus? Let me have the evidence of Verres himself.

Let us see what that fellow said on his oath. Recite it. “Being asked by the accuser, he answered that he was not prosecuting for that in this trial, that he intended to prosecute for that another time.” How, then, does Nero's decision profit you?—how does the conviction of Philodamus? Though you, a lieutenant, had been besieged, and when, as you yourself write to Nero, a notorious injury had been done to the Roman people, and to the common cause of all lieutenants, you did not prosecute. You said that you intended to prosecute at some other time When was that time? When have you prosecuted? Why have you taken so much from the rights of a lieutenant's rank? Why have you abandoned and betrayed the cause of the Roman people? Why have you passed over your own injuries, involved as they were in the public injury? Ought you not to have brought the cause before the senate? to have complained of such atrocious injuries? to have taken care that those men who had excited the populace should be summoned by the letters of the consuls?

Lately, when Marcus Aurelius Scaurus made the demand, because he said that he as quaestor had been prevented by force at Ephesus from taking his servant out of the temple of Diana, who had taken refuge in that asylum, Pericles, an Ephesian, a most noble man, was summoned to Rome, because he was accused of having been the author of that wrong. If you had stated to the senate that you, a lieutenant, had been so treated at Lampsacus, that your companions were wounded, your lictor slain, you yourself surrounded and nearly burnt, and that the ringleaders and principal actors and chiefs in that transaction were Themistagoras and Thessalus, who, you write, were so, who would not have been moved? Who would not have thought that he was taking care of himself in chastising the injury which had been done to you? Who would not have thought that not only your cause but that the common safety was at stake in that matter? In truth the name of lieutenant [*](Cicero here, one may almost say, plays on the meanings of the word legatus, which means not only a lieutenant, but also an ambassador The persons of ambassadors have always, by the laws of nations, been considered to be sacred but Verres was not an ambassador, but a lieutenant.) ought to be such as to pass in safety not only among the laws of allies, but even amid the arms of enemies.

This crime committed at Lampsacus is very great; a crime of lust and of the most infamous desires. Listen now to a tale of avarice, but little less iniquitous of its sort. He demanded of the Milesians a ship to attend him to Myndus as a guard. They immediately gave him a light vessel, a beautiful one of its class, splendidly adorned and armed. With this guard he went to Myndus. For, as to the wool being public property which he carried off from the Milesians,—as for his extravagance on his arrival,—as for his insults and injuries offered to the Milesian magistrates, although they might be stated not only truly, but also with vehemence and with indignation, still I shall pass them all over, and reserve them for another time to be proved by evidence. At present listen to this which cannot possibly be suppressed, and at the same time cannot be mentioned with proper dignity.