In C. Verrem

And all the reproaches which they heaped upon him, all the infamy that they attributed to him, was confirmed by the statements of those men who had been appointed by their own cities to command their ships; the rest of whom had fled to Syracuse after the loss of the fleet. Each of them stated how many men they knew had been discharged out of their respective ships. The matter was clear, and his avarice was proved not only by arguments, but also by undeniable witnesses. The man is informed that nothing is done in the forum and in the assembly all that day, except putting questions to the naval captains how the fleet was lost. That they made answer, and informed every one that it was owing to the discharge of the rowers, the want of food of the rest, the cowardice and desertion of Cleomenes. And when he heard this, he began to form this design. He had long since made up his mind that a prosecution would be instituted against him, long before this happened, as you have heard him say himself at the former pleading. He saw that if those naval captains were produced as witnesses against him, he should not be able to stand against so serious an accusation. He forms at first a plan, foolish indeed, but still merciful.

He orders Cleomenes and the naval captains to be summoned before him. They come. He accuses them of having held this language about himself; he begs them to cease from holding it; and begs every one there to say that he had had in his ship as large a crew as he ought to have had, and that none had been discharged. They promise him to do whatever he wished. He does not delay. He immediately summons his friends. He then asks of all the captains separately how many sailors each had had on board his ship. Each of them answers as he had been enjoined to. He makes an entry of their answers in his journal. He seals it up, prudent man that he is, with the seals of his friends; in order forsooth, to use this evidence against this charge, if ever it should be necessary.

I imagine that senseless man must have been laughed at by his own counselors, and warned that these documents would do him no good; that if the charge were made, there would be even more suspicion owing to these extraordinary precautions of the praetor. He had already behaved with such folly in many cases, as even publicly to order whatever he pleased to be expunged out of, or entered in the records of different cities. All which things he now finds out are of no use to him, since he is convicted by documents, and witnesses, and authorities which are all undeniable. When he sees that their confession, and all the evidence which he has manufactured, and his journals, will be of no use to him, he then adopts the design, not of a worthless praetor, (for even that might have been endured,) but an inhuman and senseless tyrant. He determines, that if he wishes to palliate that accusation, (for he did not suppose that he could get rid of it altogether,) all the naval captains, the witnesses of his wickedness, must be put to death.

The next consideration was,—“What am I to do with Cleomenes? Can I put those men to death whom I placed under his command, and spare him whom I placed in command and authority over them? Can I punish those men who followed Cleomenes, and pardon Cleomenes who bade them fly with him, and follow him? Can I be severe to those men who had vessels not only devoid of crews, but devoid of decks, and be merciful to him who was the only man who had a decked ship, and whose ship, too, was not stripped bare like those of the others?” Cleomenes must die too. What signify his promises? what do the curses that he will heap on him? what do the pledges of friendship and mutual embraces? what does that comradeship in the service, of a woman on that most luxurious sea-shore signify? It was utterly impossible that Cleomenes could be spared. He summons Cleomenes.

He tells him that he has made up his mind to execute all the naval captains; that considerations of his own personal danger required such a step. “I will spare you alone, and I will endure the blame of all that disaster myself, and all possible reproaches for my inconsistency, rather than act cruelly to you on the one hand, or, on the other hand, leave so many and such important witnesses against me in safety and in life.” Cleomenes thanks him: approves of his intention; and says that that is what must be done. But he reminds him, of what he had forgotten, that it will not he possible for him to put Phalargus the Centuripan, one of the naval captains, to death, because he had been with him himself in the Centuripan quadrireme. What, then, is he to do? Shall that man, of such a city as that, a most noble youth, be left to be a witness? At present, says Cleomenes, for it must be so; but afterwards we will take care that it shall be put out of his power to injure us.

After all this was settled and determined, Verres immediately advances from his praetorian house, inflamed with wickedness, frenzy, and cruelty. He comes into the forum. He orders the naval captains to be summoned. They immediately come with all speed, as men who were afraid of nothing, and suspected nothing. He orders those unhappy and innocent men to be loaded with chains. They began to invoke the good faith of the praetor, and to ask why he did so? Then he says that this is the reason,—because they had betrayed the fleet to the pirates. There is a great outcry, and great astonishment on the part of the people, that there should be so much impudence and audacity in the man as to attribute to others the origin of a calamity which had happened entirely owing to his own avarice; or to bring against others a charge of treason, when he himself was thought to be a partner of the pirates; and lastly, they marveled at this charge not being originated till fifteen days after the fleet had been lost.

While these things were happening, inquiry was made where Cleomenes was: not that any one thought him, such as he was, worthy of any punishment for that disaster; for what could Cleomenes have done, (for it is not in my nature to accuse any one falsely,)—what, I say, could Cleomenes have done of any consequence, when his ships had been dismantled by the avarice of Verres? And they see him sitting by the side of the praetor, and whispering familiarly in his ear, as he was accustomed to do. But then it did seem a most scandalous thing to every one, that most honourable men, chosen by their own cities, should be put in chains and in prison, but that Cleomenes, on account of his partnership with him in debauchery and infamy, should be the praetor's most familiar friend.

However, an accuser is produced against them, a certain Naevius Turpio, who, when Caius Sacerdos was praetor, had been convicted of an assault; a very suitable tool for the audacity of Verres; a man whom he had frequently employed in matters connected with the tenths, in capital prosecutions, and in every sort of false accusation, as a scout and emissary. The parents and relations of these unfortunate young men came to Syracuse, being aroused by the sudden news of this misfortune. They see their children loaded with chains, bearing on their necks and shoulders the punishment due to the avarice of Verres. They come forward, they defend them, they raise an outcry; they implore your good faith which at no time and no place had ever any existence. The father of one came forward, Dexis the Tyndaritan; a man of the noblest family, connected by ties of hospitality with you yourself, at whose house you had been, whom you had called your friend. When you saw him, a man of such high rank in such distress could not his tears, could not his old age could not the claims of hospitality and the name of friend recall you back from your wickedness to some degree of humanity?

But why do I speak of the claims of hospitality with reference to so inhuman a monster? He who entered Sthenius of Thermae, his own connection, whose house, while received in it in hospitality, he had plundered and stripped, in the list of criminals in his defence, and who, without allowing him to make any defence, condemned him to death; are we now to expect the claims and duties of hospitality from him? Are we dealing with a cruel man or with a savage and inhuman monster? Could not the tears of a father for the danger of his innocent son move you? As you had left your father at home, and kept your son with you, did neither your son who was present remind you of the affection of children, nor your father who was absent call to your recollection the indulgence of a father?

Your friend Aristeus, the son of Dexion, was in chains. Why was this? He had betrayed the fleet. For what bribe? He had deserted the army. What had Cleomenes done? He had done nothing at all. Yet you had presented him with a golden crown for his valour. He had discharged the sailors. But you had received from them all the price of their discharge. Another father, from another district, was Eubulida of Herlita: a man of great reputation in his city, and of high birth; who, because he had injured Cleomenes in defending his son, had been left nearly destitute. But what was there which any one could say or allege in his defence? They are not allowed to name Cleomenes. But the cause compels them to do so. You shall die if you do name him, (for he never threatened any one with trifling punishment.) But there were no rowers. What! are you accusing the praetor? Break his neck. If one is not allowed to name either the praetor, or the rival of the praetor, when the whole case turns on the conduct of these two men, what is to be done?

Heraclius of Segesta also pleads his cause; a man of the very noblest descent in his own city. Listen, O judges, as your humanity requires of you, for you will hear of great cruelties and injuries inflicted on the allies. Know then that the case of Heraclius was this:—that on account of a severe complaint in his eyes he had not gone to sea at all; but by his order who had the command, he had remained in his quarters at Syracuse. He certainly never betrayed the fleet; he did not run away in a fright; he did not desert the army; if he had, he might have been punished when the fleet was setting out from Syracuse. But he was in just the same condition as if he had been detected in some manifest crime; though no charge at all could be brought against him, not ever so falsely.

Among these naval captains was a citizen of Heraclia, of the name of Junius, (for they have some Latin names of that sort,) a man, as long as he lived, illustrious in his own city, and after his death celebrated over all Sicily. In that man there was courage enough, not only to attack Verres, for that indeed, as he saw that he was sure to die, he was aware that he could do without any danger; but when his death was settled, while his mother was sitting in his prison, night and day weeping, he wrote out the defence which his cause required; and now there is no one in all Sicily who is not in possession of that defence, who does not read it, who is not constantly reminded by that oration, of your wickedness and cruelty. In it he states how many sailors he received from his city; how many Verres discharged, and for how much he discharged each of them; how many he had left. He makes similar statements with respect to the other ships and when he uttered these statements before you, he was scourged on the eyes. But when death was staring him in the face, he could easily endure pain of body; he cried out, what he has left also in writing, “That it was an infamous thing that the tears of an unchaste woman on behalf of the safety of Cleomenes should have more influence with you, than those of his mother for his life.”

Afterwards I see that this also is stated, which, if the Roman people has formed a correct estimate of your characters, O judges, he, at the very hour of death, truly prophesied of you,—“That it was not possible for Verres to efface his own crimes by murdering the witnesses; that he, in the shades below, should be a still more serious witness against him, in the opinion of sensible judges, than if he were produced alive in a court of justice; for that then, if he were alive he would only be a witness to prove his avarice; but now, when he had been, put to death, he should be a witness of his wickedness, and audacity, and cruelty.” What follows is very fine,—“That, when your cause came to be tried, it would not be only the bands of witnesses, but the punishments inflicted on the innocent, and the furies that haunt the wicked, that would attend your trial; that he thought his own misfortune the lighter, because he had seen before now the edge of your axes, and the countenance and hand of Sextus your executioner, when in an assembly of Roman citizens, Roman citizens were publicly executed by your command.”

Not to dwell too long on this, Junius used most freely that liberty which you have given the allies, even at the moment of bitter punishment, such as was only fit for slaves. He condemns them all, with the approval of his assessors. And yet, in so important an affair, in a cause in which so many men and so many citizens were concerned, he neither sent for Publius Vettius, his quaestor, to take his advice; nor for Publius Cervius, an admirable man, his lieutenant, who, because he had been lieutenant in Sicily, while he was praetor was the first man rejected by him as a judge; but he condemns them all in conformity with the opinion expressed by a lot of robbers, that is, by his own retinue.

On this all the Sicilians, our most faithful and most ancient allies, who have had the greatest kindnesses conferred on them by our ancestors, were greatly agitated, and alarmed at their own danger, and at the peril of all their fortunes. That that noted clemency and mildness of our dominion should have been changed into such cruelty and inhumanity! That so many men should be condemned at one time for no crime! That that infamous praetor should seek for a defence for his own robberies by the most shameful murder of innocent men! Nothing, O judges, appears possible to be added to such wickedness, insanity, and barbarity—and it is true that nothing can; for if it be compared with the iniquity of other men it will greatly surpass it all.

But he is his own rival; his object is always to outdo his last crime by some new wickedness. I had said that Phalargus the Centuripan was made an exception by Cleomenes, because he had sailed in his quadrireme. Still because that young man was alarmed, as he saw that his case was identical with that of those men who had been put to death, though perfectly innocent; Timarchides came to him, and tells him that he is in no danger at all of being put to death, but warns him to take care lest he should be sentenced to be scourged. To make my story short, you heard the young man himself say, that because of his fear of being scourged he paid money to Timarchides.

These are but light crimes in such a criminal as this. A naval captain of a most noble city ransoms himself from the danger of being scourged with a bribe—it was a human weakness. Another gave money to save himself from being condemned—it is a common thing. The Roman people does not wish Verres to be prosecuted on obsolete accusations; it demands new charges against him; it requires something which it has not heard before; it thinks that it is not a praetor of Sicily, but some most cruel tyrant that is being brought before the court. The condemned men are consigned to prison. They are sentenced to execution. Even the wretched parents of the naval captains are punished; they are prevented from visiting their sons; they are prevented from supplying their down children with food and raiment.

These very fathers, whom you see here, lay on the threshold, and the wretched mothers spent their nights at the door of the prison, denied the parting embrace of their children, though they prayed for nothing but to be allowed to receive their son's dying breath. The porter of the prison, the executioner of the praetor, was there; the death and terror of both allies and citizens; the lictor Sextius, to whom every groan and every agony of every one was a certain gain—“To visit him, you must give so much; to be allowed to take him food into the prison, so much.” No one refused. “What now, what will you give me to put your son to death at one blow of my axe? to save him from longer torture? to spare him repeated blows? to take care that he shall give up the ghost without any sense of pain or torture?” Even for this object money was given to the lictor.

Oh great and intolerable agony! oh terrible and bitter ill-fortune! Parents were compelled to purchase, not the life of their children, but a swiftness of execution for them. And the young men themselves also negotiated with Sextius about the same execution, and about that one blow; and at last, children entreated their parents to give money to the lictor for the sake of shortening their sufferings. Many and terrible sufferings have been invented for parents and relations; many—still death is the last of all. It shall not be. Is there any further advance that cruelty can make? One stall be found—for, when their children have been executed and slain, their bodies shall be exposed to wild beasts. If this is a miserable thing for a parent to endure, let him pay money for leave to bury him.

You heard Onasus the Segestan, a man of noble birth, say that he had paid money to Timarchides for leave to bury the naval captain, Heraclius. And this (that you may not be able to say, “Yes, the fathers come, angry at the loss of their sons,”) is stated by a man of the highest consideration, a man of the noblest birth; and he does not state it with respect to any son of his own. And as to this, who was there at Syracuse at that time, who did not hear, and who does not know that these bargains for permission to bury were made with Timarchides by the living relations of those who had been put to death? Did they not speak openly with Timarchides? Were not all the relations of all the men present? Were not the funerals of living men openly bargained for? And then, when all those matters were settled and arranged, the men are brought out of prison and tied to the stake.