In C. Verrem

See, therefore, how many things are required of you at once. Acquit the man who confesses that he has taken immense sums, doing at the same time the greatest injury to our allies. That is not enough. There are also many others who have done the same thing. Acquit them also, if there are any; so as to release as many rogues as possible by one decision. Even that is not enough. Cause that it may be lawful to those who come after them to do the same thing. It shall be lawful. Even this is too little. Allow it to be lawful for every one to value corn at whatever price he pleases. He may so value it. You see now, in truth, O judges, that if this valuation be approved of by you, there will be no limit hereafter to any man's avarice, nor any punishment for dishonesty.

What, therefore, O Hortensius, are you about? You are the consul elect, you have had a province allotted to you. When you speak on the subject of the valuation of corn, we shall listen to you as if you were avowing that you will do what you defend as having been legitimately done by Verres; and as if you were very eager that that should be lawful for you which you say was lawful for him. But if that is to be lawful, there is nothing which you can imagine any one likely to do hereafter, in consequence of which he can possibly be condemned for extortion. For whatever sum of money any one covets, that amount it will be lawful for him to acquire, under the plea of the granary, and by means of the highness of the valuation.

But there is a thing, which, even if Hortensius does not say it openly in defending Verres, he still does say in such a manner that you may suspect and think that this matter concerns the advantage of the senators; that it concerns the advantage of those who are judges, and who think that they will some day or other be in the provinces themselves as governors or as lieutenants. But you must think that we have splendid judges, if you think them likely to show indulgence to the faults of others, in order the more easily to be allowed to commit faults themselves. Do we then wish the Roman people, do we wish the provinces, and our allies, and foreign nations to think that, if senators are the judges, this particular manner of extorting immense sums of money with the greatest injustice will never be in any way chastised? But if that be the case, what can we say against that praetor who every day occupies the senate, who insists upon it that the republic can not prosper, if the office of judge is not restored to the equestrian order?

But if he begins to agitate this one point, that there is one description of extortion, common to all the senators, and now almost legalized in the case of that order, by which immense sums are taken from the allies with the greatest injustice; and that this cannot possibly be repressed by tribunals of senators, but that, while the equestrian order furnished the senators, it never was committed; who, then, can resist him? Who will be so desirous of gratifying you, who will be such a partisan of your order, as to be able to oppose the transference of the appointment of judges to that body? And I wish he were able to make a defence to this charge by any argument, however false, as long as it is natural and customary. You could then decide with less danger to yourselves, with less danger to all the provinces. Did he deny that he had adopted this valuation? You would appear to have believed the man in that statement, not to have approved of his action. He cannot possibly deny it. It is proved by all Sicily. Out of all that numerous band of cultivators, there is not one from whom money has not been exacted on the plea of the granary.

I wish he were able to say even this, that that affair does not concern him; that the whole business relating to corn was managed by the quaestors. Even that he cannot say, because his own letters are read which were sent to the cities, written on the subject of the three denarii. What then is his defence? “I have done what you accuse me of; I have extorted immense sums on the plea of the granary; but it was lawful for me to do so, and it will be lawful for you if you take care.” A dangerous thing for the provinces for any classes of injury to be established by judicial decision to a dangerous thing for our order, for the Roman people to think that these men, who themselves are subject to the laws, cannot defend the laws with strictness when they are judges. And while that man was praetor, O judges, there was not only no limit to his valuing corn, but there was none either to his demands of corn. Nor did he command that only to be supplied that was due, but as much as was advantageous for himself. I will put before you the sum total of all the corn commanded to be furnished for the granary, as collected out of the public documents, and the testimonies of the cities You will find, O judges, that man commanded the cities to supply five times as much as it was lawful for him to take for the granary. What can be added to this impudence, if he both valued it at such a price that men could not endure it, and also commanded so much more to be supplied than was permitted to him by the laws to require?

Wherefore, now that you have heard the whole business of the corn, O judges, you can easily see that Sicily, that most productive and most desirable province, has been lost to the Roman people, unless you recover it by your condemnation of that man. For what is Sicily, if you take away the cultivation of its land, and if you extinguish the multitude and the very name of the cultivators of the soil? For what can there be left of disaster which has not come to those unhappy cultivators, with every circumstance of injury and insult? They were liable, indeed, to pay tenths, but they have scarcely had a tenth left for themselves. When money has been due to them, it has not been paid; though the senate intended them to supply corn for the granary according to a very equitable valuation, they have been compelled to sell even the tools with which they cultivate their lands.

I have already said, O judges, that even if you remove all these injuries, still that the occupation of cultivating land is maintained owing to the hopes and a certain sort of pleasure which it gives, rather than because of the profit and emolument arising from it. In truth every year constant labour and constant expense is incurred in the hope of a result which is casual and uncertain. Moreover, the crop does not command a high price, except in a disastrous harvest. But if there has been a great abundance of crops gathered, then there is cheapness in selling them. So that you may see that the corn must be badly sold if it is got in well, or else that the crop must be bad if you get a good price for it. And the whole business of agriculture is such, that it is regulated not by reason or by industry, but by those most uncertain things,—the weather and the winds. When from agriculture one tenth is extracted by law and on fair terms,—when a second is levied by a new regulation, on account of the necessity of procuring a sufficient supply for ourselves,—when, besides, corn is purchased every year by public authority,—and when, after all that, more still is ordered by magistrates and lieutenants to be supplied for the granary,—what, or how much is there after all this of his own crop which the cultivator or owner can have at his own disposal, for his own profit?

And if all this is endured,—if by their care, and expense, and labour, they consult your advantage and that of the Roman people rather than themselves and their own profit,—still, ought they also to bear these new edicts and commands of the praetors, and the imperiousness of Apronius, and the robberies and rapine of the slaves of Venus? Ought they also to supply corn which ought to be purchased of them without getting any payment for it? Ought they also, though they are willing to supply corn for the granary without payment, to be forced to pay large sums too? Ought they also to endure all these injures and all these losses accompanied with the greatest insult and contumely? Therefore, O judges, those things which they have not at all been able to bear, they have not borne. You know that over the whole of Sicily the allotments of land are deserted and abandoned by their owners. Nor is there anything else to be gained by this trial, except that our most ancient and faithful allies, the Sicilians, Roman settlers, and the cultivators of the soil, owing to your strictness and your care, may return to their farms and to their homes under my guidance and through my instrumentality.