In C. Verrem

What more shall I say? If anything was done by Apollonius to justify his being punished, shall we conduct this affair in such a manner as to impute it as a crime to the defendant, as to seek to excite ill-feeling against him, if he has judged a man rather too harshly? I will not act in so bitter a spirit. I will not adopt the usual method of accusers, so as to disparage anything which may have been done mercifully, as having been so done out of indifference; or, if anything has been punished with severity, so as to pervert that into a charge of cruelty—I will not act on that system. I will follow your decisions; I will defend your authority as long as you choose; when you yourself begin to rescind your own decrees, then cease to be angry with me, for I will contend, as I have a right to do, that he who has been condemned by his own decision ought to be condemned by the decisions of judges on their oaths.

I will not defend the cause of Apollonius, my own friend and connection, lest I should seem to be rescinding, our decision; I will say nothing of the economy, of the virtue, of the industry of the man; I will even pass over that which I have mentioned before, that his fortune was invested in such a manner, in slaves, in cattle, in country houses, in money out at loan, that there was no man to whom it would be more injurious for there to be any disturbance or war in Sicily; I will not even say this, that if Apollonius were ever so much in fault, still an honourable man of a most honourable city ought not to have been so severely punished without a trial.

I will not seek to excite any odium against you, not even out of the circumstances that, while such a man was lying in prison, in darkness, in dirt and filth, all permission to visit him was refuted by your tyrannical prohibition to his aged father, and to his youthful son. I will even pass over this, that every time that you came to Panormus during that eighteen months, (for all that time was Apollonius kept in prison,) the senate of Panormus came to you as suppliants, with the public magistrates and priests, praying and entreating you to release some time or other that miserable and innocent man from that cruel treatment. I will omit all these statements; though, were I to choose to follow them up, I could easily show by your cruelty towards others, that every channel of mercy from the judges to yourself has been long since blocked up.

All those topics I will abandon, I will spare you them. For I know beforehand what Hortensius will say in your defence. He will confess that with Verres neither the old age of Apollonius's father, nor the youth of his son, nor the tears of both, had more influence than the advantage and safety of the republic. He will say that the affairs of the republic cannot be administered without terror and severity; he will ask why the fasces are borne before the praetors, why the axes are given to them, why prisons have been built, why so many punishments have been established against the wicked by the usage of our ancestors. And when he has said all this with becoming gravity and sternness, I will ask him why Verres all of a sudden ordered this same Apollonius to be released from prison, without any fresh circumstances having been brought to light, without any defence having been made, or any trial having taken place? And I will affirm that there is so much suspicion attached to this charge, that, without any arguments of mine, I will allow the judges to form their own opinion as to what a system of plundering this was, how infamous, how scandalous, and what an immense and boundless field it opens for inordinate gain.

For first of all consider for a moment how many and how grievous were the evils which that man inflicted on Apollonius; and then calculate them and estimate them by money. You will find that they were all so continued in the case of this one wealthy man, as by their example to cause a fear of similar suffering and danger to all others. In the first place, there was a sudden accusation of a capital and detestable crime; judge what you think this worth, and how many have bought themselves off from such charges. In the next place, there is an accusation without an accuser, a sentence without any bench of judges, a condemnation without any defence having been made. Estimate the money to be got by all these transactions, and then suppose that Apollonius alone was an actual victim to these atrocities, but that all the rest, as many as they were, delivered themselves from these sufferings by money. Lastly, there were darkness, chains, imprisonment, punishment within the prison, seclusion from the sight of his parents and of his children, a denial of the free air and common light of heaven; but these things, which a man might freely give his life to escape, I am unable to estimate by the standard of money.

From all these things did Apollonius after a long time ransom himself, when he was worn out with suffering and misery; but still he taught the rest to meet that man's wickedness and avarice beforehand. Unless you think that a wealthy man was selected for so incredible an accusation without any object of gain; or that, again, he was on a sudden released from prison without any corresponding reason; or that this method of plundering was used and tried in the case of that man alone, and that terror was not, by means of his example, held out to and struck into every rich man in Sicily.

I wish, O judges, to be prompted by him, since I am speaking of his military renown, if by accident I pass over anything. For I seem to myself to have spoken of all his exploits which are connected with his suspicion of a servile war; at all events I have not omitted anything intentionally. You are in possession of the man's wisdom, and diligence, and vigilance; and of his guardianship and defence of the province. The main thing is, as there are many classes of generals, for you to know to what class he belongs. But that, in the present dearth of brave men, you may not be ignorant of such a commander as he is, know,—I beg you, O judges, to be aware, that his is not the wisdom of Quintus Maximus, nor the promptness of action belonging to that great man the elder Africanus, nor the singular prudence of the Africanus of later times, nor the method and discipline of Paulus Aemilius, nor the vigour and courage of Caius Marcus; but that he is to be esteemed and taken care of as belonging to quite a different class of generals.

In the first place, see how easy and pleasant to himself Verres by his own ingenuity and wisdom made the labour of marches, which is a labour of the greatest importance in all military affairs, and most especially necessary in Sicily. First, in the winter season he devises for himself this admirable remedy against the severity of the cold and the violence of storms and floods; he selected the city of Syracuse, the situation of which and the nature of its soil and atmosphere are said to be such that there never yet was a day of such violent and turbulent storms, that men could not see the sun at some time or other in the day. Here that gallant general was quartered in the winter months, so securely that it was not easy to see him, I will not say out of the house, but even out of bed. So the shortness of the day was consumed in banquets, the length of the night in adulteries and debaucheries.

But when it began to be spring, the beginning of which he was not used to date from the west wind, or from any star, but he thought that spring was beginning when he had seen the rose, then he devoted himself to labour and to marches; and in these he proved himself so patient and active that no one ever once saw him sitting on a horse. For, as was the custom of the kings of Bithynia, he was borne on a litter carried by eight men, in which was a cushion, very beautiful, of Melitan manufacture, stuffed with roses. And he himself had one chaplet on his head, another on his neck, and kept putting a network bag to his nose, made of the finest thread, with minute interstices, full of roses. Having performed his march in this manner, when he came to any town he was carried in the same litter up to his chamber. Thither came the magistrates of the Sicilians, thither came the Roman knights, as you have heard many of them state on their oaths; there disputes were secretly communicated to him; and from thence, a little while afterwards, decrees were openly brought down. Then, when for a while he had dispensed the laws for bribery, and not out of considerations of justice, he thought that now the rest of his time was due to Venus and to Bacchus.