In C. Verrem

Some one will say, “What! do you value those things at a very high price?” But I am not valuing them according to any calculation of my own, or any need which I have for them; but I think that the matter ought to be looked at by you in this light,—what is the value of these things in the opinion of those men who are judges of these things; at what price they are accustomed to be sold; at what price these very things could be sold, if they were sold openly and freely; lastly, at what price Verres himself values them. For he would never have been so foolish, if he had thought that Cupid worth only four hundred denarii, as to allow himself to be made a subject for the common conversation and general reproach of men.

Who then of you all is ignorant at how great a price these things are valued? Have we not seen at an auction a brazen statue of no great size sold for a hundred and twenty thousand sesterces? What if I were to choose to name men who have bought similar things for no less a price, or even for a higher one? Can I not do so? In truth, the only limit to the valuation of such things is the desire which any one has for them, for it is difficult to set bounds to the price unless you first set bounds to the wish. I see then that Heius was neither led by his inclination, nor by any temporary difficulties, nor by the greatness of the sum given, to sell these statues; and that you, under the presence of purchase which you put forward, in reality seized and took away these things by force, through fear, by your power and authority, from that man, whom, along with the rest of our allies in that country, the Roman people had entrusted not only to your power, but also to your upright exercise of it.

What can there be, judges, so desirable for me in making this charge, as that Heius should say this same thing? Nothing certainly; but let us not wish for what is difficult to be obtained. Heius is a Mamertine. The state of the Mamertines alone, by a common resolution, praises that man in the name of the city. To all the rest of the Sicilians he is an object of hatred; by the Mamertines alone is he liked. But of that deputation which has been sent to utter his praises, Heius is the chief man; in truth, he is the chief man of his city, and too much occupied in discharging the public duties imposed upon him to speak of his private injuries.

Though I was aware of and had given weight to these considerations, still, O judges, I trusted myself to Heius. I produced him at the first pleading; and indeed I did it without any danger, for what answer could Heius give even if he turned out a dishonest man, and unlike himself? Could he say that these statues were at his house, and not with Verres? How could he say anything of that sort? If he were the basest of men, and were inclined to lie most shamelessly, he would say this; that he had had them for sale, and that he had sold them at the price he wanted for them. The man the most noble in all his city, who was especially anxious that you should have a high opinion of his conscientiousness and of his worth, says first, that he spoke in Verres's praise by the public authority of his city, because that commission had been given to him; secondly; that he had not had these things for sale, and that, if he had been allowed to do what he wished, he could never have been induced by any terms to sell those things which were in his private chapel, having been left to him and handed down to him from his ancestors.

Why are you sitting there, O Verres? What are you waiting for? Why do you say that you are hemmed in and overwhelmed by the cities of Centuripa, of Catina, of Halesa, of Tyndaris, of Enna, of Agyrium, and by all the other cities of Sicily? Your second country, as you used to call it, Messanaherself attacks you; your own MessanaI say; the assistant in your crimes, the witness of your lusts, the receiver of your booty and your thefts. For the most honourable man of that city is present, a deputy sent from his home on account of this very trial, the chief actor in the panegyric on you; who praises you by the public order of his city, for so he has been charged and commanded to do. Although you recollect, O judges, what he answered when he was asked about the ship; that it had been built by public labour, at the public expense, and that a Mamertine senator had been appointed by the public authority to superintend its building. Heius in his private capacity flees to you for aid, O judges; he avails himself of this law, the common fortress of our allies, by which this tribunal is established. Although there is a law for recovering money which has been unjustly extorted, he says that he does not seem to recover any money; which though it has been taken from him, he does not so much care about: but he says he does demand back from you the sacred images belonging to his ancestors, he does demand back from you his hereditary household god?

Have you any shame, O Verres? have you any religion? have you any fear, You have lived in Heius's house at Messana; you saw him almost daily performing sacred rites in his private chapel before those gods. He is not influenced by money; he does not even ask to have those things restored which were merely ornaments. Keep the Canephorae; restore the images of the gods. And because he said this, because after a given time he, an ally and friend of the Roman people, addressed his complaints to you in a moderate tone, because he was very attentive to religious obligation not only while demanding back his paternal gods, but also in giving his evidence on oath; know that one of the deputies has been sent back to Messana, that very man who superintended the building of that ship at the public expense, to demand from the senate that Heius should be condemned to an ignominious punishment.

O most insane of men, what did you think? that you should obtain what you requested? Did you not know how greatly he was esteemed by his fellow-citizens; how great his influence was considered? But suppose you had obtained your request; suppose that the Mamertines had passed any severe vote against Heius, what do you think would have been the authority of their panegyric, if they had decreed punishment to the man who it was notorious had given true evidence? Although, what sort of praise is that, when he who utters it, being questioned, is compelled to give answers injurious to him whom he is praising? What! are not those who are praising you, my witnesses? Heius is an encomiast of yours; he has done you the most serious injury. I will bring forward the rest; they will gladly be silent about all that they are allowed to suppress; they will say what they cannot help saying, unwillingly. Can they deny that a transport of the largest size was built for that man at Messana? Let them deny it if they can. Can they deny that a Mamertine senator was appointed by the public authority to superintend the building of that ship? I wish they would deny it. There are other points also which I prefer reserving unmentioned at present, in order to give as little time as possible to them for planning and arranging their perjury.

Let this praise, then, be placed to your account; let these men come to your relief with their authority, who neither ought to help you if they were able, nor could do so if they wished; on whom in their private capacity you have inflicted many injuries, and put many affronts, while in their city you have dishonoured many families for ever by your adulteries and crimes “But you have been of public service to their city.” Not without great injury to the republic and to the province of Sicily. They were bound to supply and they used to supply sixty thousand modiiof wheat to the Roman people for payment; that was remitted by you of your own sole authority. The republic was injured because by your means its right of dominion over one city was disparaged; the Sicilians were injured, because this quantity was not deducted from the total amount of the corn to be provided by the island, but was only transferred to the cities of Centuripa and Halesa, whose inhabitants were exempt from that tax; and on them a greater burden was imposed than they were able to bear.

It was your duty to require them to furnish a ship, in compliance with the treaty. You remitted it for three years. During all those years you never demanded one soldier. You acted as pirates are accustomed to act, who, though they are the common enemies of all men, still select some friends, whom they not only spare, but even enrich with their booty; and especially such as have a town in a convenient situation, where they often, and sometimes even necessarily, put in with their vessels. The town of Phaselis, which Publius Servilius took, had not been in former times a city of Cilicians and pirates. The Lycians, a Greek tribe, inhabited it; but because it was in such a situation as it was, and because it projected into the sea, so that pirates from Ciliciaoften necessarily touched at it when departing on an expedition, and were also often borne thither on their retreats, the pirates connected that city with themselves; at first by commercial intercourse, and afterwards by a regular alliance.

The city of the Mamertines was not formerly of bad character; it was even a city hostile to dishonest men, and detained the luggage of Caius Cato, the one who was consul But then what sort of a man was he? a most eminent and most influential man; who however, though he had been consul, was convicted. So Caius Cato, the grandson of two most illustrious men, Lucius Paullus and Marcus Cato, and the son of the sister of Publius Africanus; who, even when convicted, at a time when severe judgments were in the habit of being passed, found the damages to which he was liable only estimated at eighteen thousand sesterces; with this man, I say, the Mamertines were angry, who have often expended a greater sum than the damages in the action against Cato were laid at, in one banquet for Timarchides.

But this city was the Phaselis for that robber and pirate of Sicily. Hither everything was brought from all quarters; with them it was left; whatever required to be concealed, they kept separate and stored away. By their agency he contrived everything which he wished put on board ship privately, and exported secretly; and in their harbour he contrived to have a vessel of the largest size built for him to send to Italyloaded with plunder. In return for these services, he gave them immunity from all expense, all labour, all military service, in short, from everything. For three years they were the only people, not only in Sicily, but, according to my opinion, in the whole world at such a time, who enjoyed excuse, relief, freedom, and immunity from every sort of expense, and trouble, and office.

Hence arose that Verrean festival; hence it was that he ventured to order Sextus Cominius to be dragged before him at a banquet, at whom he attempted to throw a goblet, whom he ordered to be seized by the throat, and to be hurried from the banquet and thrown into a dark prison; hence came that cross, on which, in the sight of many men, he suspended a Roman citizen; that cross which he never ventured to erect anywhere except among that people, whom he had made sharers in all his crimes and robberies. Do you, O Mamertines, dare to come to praise any one? By what authority? by that which you ought to have with the Senatorial order? by that which you ought to have with the Roman people?

Is there any city, not only in our provinces, but in the most distant nations, either so powerful, or so free, or so savage and uncivilized? is there any king, who would not invite a Senator of the Roman people to his house and to his home? An honour which is paid not only to the man, but in the first place to the Roman people, by whose indulgence we have risen to this order, and secondly to the authority of this order; and unless that is respected among our allies, where will be the name and dignity of the empire among foreign nations? The Mamertines did not give me any public invitation—when I say me, that is a trifle, but when they did not invite a Senator of the Roman people, they withheld an honour due not to the man but to his order. For to Tullius himself, the most splendid and magnificent house of Cnaeus Pompeius Basilicus was opened; with whom he would have lodged even if he had been invited by you. There was also the most honourable house of the Percennii, who are now also called Pompeius; where Lucius my brother lodged and was received by them with the greatest eagerness. A Senator of the Roman people, as far as depended on you as a body, lay in your town, and passed the night in the public streets. No other city ever did such a thing. “Yes,” say you, “for you were instituting a prosecution against our friend.” Will you put your own interpretation on what private business I have of my own, by diminishing the honour due to the Senate?

But I will make my complaint of this conduct, if ever the time comes that there is any discussion concerning you among that body, which, up to this time, has been affronted by no one but you. With what face have you presented yourself before the eyes of the Roman people? when you have not yet pulled down that cross, which is even now stained with the blood of a Roman citizen, which is fixed up in your city by the harbour, and have not thrown it into the sea and purified all that place, before you came to Rome, and before this tribunal. On the territory of the Mamertines, connected with us by treaty, at peace with us, is that monument of your cruelty raised. Is not your city the only one where, when any one arrives at it from Italy, he sees the cross of a Roman citizen before he sees any friend of the Roman people? which you are in the habit of displaying to the people of Rhegium, whose city you envy, and to your inhabitants, Roman citizens as they are, to make them think less of themselves, and be less inclined to despise you, when they see the privileges of our citizenship extinguished by such a punishment.

But you say you bought these things? What? did you forget to purchase of the same Heius that Attalic [*](Attalus, king of Pergamus, had been the inventor of weaving gold thread into tapestry work, and therefore tapestry with gold threads interwoven in it was called by his name.)tapestry, celebrated over the whole of Sicily? You might have bought them in the same way as you did the statues. For what did you do? Did you wish to spare the account books? This escaped the notice of that stupid man; he thought that what he stole from the wardrobe would be less notorious than what he had stolen from the private chapel. But how did he get it? I cannot relate it more plainly than Heius himself related it before you. When I asked, whether any other part of his property had come to Verres, he answered that he had sent him orders to send the tapestry to Agrigentumto him. I asked whether he had sent it. He replied as he must, that is, that he had been obedient to the praetor; that he had sent it.—I asked whether it had arrived at Agrigentum; he said it had arrived.—I asked in what condition it had returned; he said it had not returned yet.—There was a laugh and a murmur from all the people.

Did it never occur to you in this instance to order him to make an entry in his books, that he had sold you this tapestry too, for six thousand five hundred sesterces? Did you fear that your debts would increase, if these things were to cost you six thousand five hundred sesterces, which you could easily sell for two hundred thousand? It was worth that, believe me. You would have been able to defend yourself if you had given that sum for it. No one would then have asked how much it was worth. If you could only prove that you had bought it, you could easily make your cause and your conduct appear reasonable to any one. But as it is, you have no way of getting out of your difficulty about the tapestry. What shall I say next?

Did you take away by force some splendid harness, which is said to have belonged to King Hiero, from Philarchus of Centuripa, a wealthy and high-born man, or did you buy it of him? When I was in Sicily, this is what I heard from the Centuripans and from everybody else, for the case was very notorious; people said that you had taken away this harness from Philarchus of Centuripa, and other very beautiful harness from Aristus of Panormus, and a third set from Gratippus of Tyndarus. Indeed, if Philarchus had sold it to you, you would not, after the prosecution was instituted against you, have promised to restore it. But because you saw that many people knew of it, you thought that if you restored it to him, you would only have so much the less, but the original transaction would be proved against you nevertheless; and so you did not restore it. Philarchus said in his evidence, that when he became acquainted with this disease of yours, as your friends call it, he wished to conceal from you the knowledge of the existence of this harness; that when he was summoned by you, he said that he had not got any; and indeed, that he had removed them to another person's house, that they might not be found; but that your instinct was so great, that you saw them by the assistance of the very man in whose custody they were deposited; that then he could not deny that you had found him out, and so that the harness was taken from him against his will, and without any payment.

Now, O judges, it is worth your while to know how he was accustomed to find and trace out all these things. There are two brothers, citizens of Cibyra, Tlepolemus and Hiero, one of whom, I believe, was accustomed to model in wax, the other was a painter. I fancy these men, as they had become suspected by their fellow-citizens of having plundered the temple of Apollo at Cibyra, fearing a trial and the punishment of the law, had fled from their homes. As they had known that Verres was a great connoisseur of such works as theirs, at the time that he, as you learnt from the witnesses, came to Cibyrawith fictitious bills of exchange, they, when flying from their homes as exiles, came to him when he was in Asia. He has kept them with him ever since that time; and in the robberies he committed, and in the booty he acquired during his lieutenancy, he greatly availed himself of their assistance and their advice.

These are the men who were meant when Quintus Tadius made an entry in his books that he had given things by Verres's order to some Greek painters. They were already well known to, and had been thoroughly tried by him, when he took them with him into Sicily. And when they arrived there, they scented cut and tracked everything in so marvellous a manner, (you might have thought they were bloodhounds,) that, wherever anything was they found it out by some means or other. Some things they found out by threatening, some by promising; this by means of slaves, that through freemen; one thing by a friend, another by an enemy. Whatever pleased them was sure to be lost. They whose plate was demanded had nothing else to hope, than that Tlepolemus and Hiero might not approve of it.

I will relate to you this fact, O judges, most truly. I recollect that Pamphilus of Lilybaeum, a connection of mine by ties of hospitality, and a personal friend of mine, a man of the highest birth, told me, that when that man had taken from him, by his absolute power, an ewer made by the hand of Boethus, of exquisite workmanship and great weight, he went home very sad in truth, and greatly agitated, because a vessel of that sort, which had been left to him by his father and his forefathers, and which he was accustomed to use on days of festival, and on the arrival of ancient friends, had been taken from him. While I was sitting at home, said he, in great indignation, up comes one of the slaves of Venus; he orders me immediately to bring to the praetor some embossed goblets. I was greatly vexed, said he; I had two; I order them both to be taken out of the closet, lest any worse thing should happen, and to be brought after me to the praetor's house. When I got there the praetor was asleep; the Cibyratic brothers were walking about, and when they saw me, they said, Pamphilus, where are the cups? I show them with great grief;—they praise them.—I begin to complain that I shall have nothing left of any value at all, if my cups too were taken away. Then they, when they see me vexed, say, What are you willing to give us to prevent these from being taken from you? To make my story short, I said that I would give six hundred sesterces. Meantime the praetor summons us; he asks for the cups. Then they began to say to the praetor, that they had thought from what they had heard, that Pamphilus's cups were of some value, but that they were miserable things, quite unworthy of Verres's having them among his plate. He said, he thought so too.