In C. Verrem

There was a woman too, called Nice, with a very beautiful face, as it is said, the wife of Cleomenes the Syracusan. Cleomenes, her husband, was greatly attached to her, but still he had neither the power nor the courage to oppose the lust of the praetor; and at the same time he was bound to him by many presents and many good offices. But at that time Verres, though you well know how great his impudence is, still could not, as her husband was at Syracuse, be quite easy in his mind at keeping her with him so many days on the seashore. Accordingly, he contrives a very singular plan. He gives the command of the fleet, which his lieutenant had had, to Cleomenes. He orders Cleomenes, a Syracusan, to command a fleet of the Roman people. He does this, in order that he might not only be absent from home all the time that he was at sea, but that he might be so willingly, being placed in a post of great honour and profit; and that he himself in the meantime, the husband being sent away to a distance, might have her with him,—I will not say more easily than before, for who ever opposed his lust? but with a rather more tranquil mind, as he had got rid of him, not as a husband but as a rival.—Cleomenes, a Syracusan, takes the command of a fleet of our allies and friends.

What topic of accusation or complaint shall I urge first, O judges? That the power, and honour, and authority of a lieutenant, of a quaestor, yes, even of a praetor, was given to a Sicilian? If you were so occupied with feasts and women as to be prevented from taking the command yourself, where were your quaestors? where were your lieutenants? where was the corn valued at three denarii? where were the mules? where were the tents? where were all the numerous and splendid badges of honour conferred and bestowed by the senate and people of Rome on their magistrates and lieutenants? Lastly, where were your prefects and tribunes? If there was no Roman citizen worthy of that employment, what had become of the cities which had always remained true to the alliance and friendship of the Roman people? What had become of the city of Segesta? of the city of Centuripa? which both by old services, by good faith, by antiquity of alliance, and even by relationship, are connected with the name of the Roman people.

O ye immortal gods! What shall we say, when Cleomenes, a Syracusan, is ordered to command the soldiers, and the ships, and the officers of these very cities? Has not Verres by such an action taken away all the honour due to worth, to justice, and to old services? Have we ever once waged war in Sicily, that we have not had the Centuripans for our friends, and the Syracusans for our enemies? And I am speaking now only by way of recollection of past time, not as meaning insult to that city. And therefore that most illustrious man and consummate general, Marcus Marcellus, by whose valour Syracuse was taken, by whose clemency it was preserved, forbade any Syracusan to dwell in that part of the city which is called the Island. To this day, I say, it is contrary to law for any Syracusan to dwell in that part of the city. For it is a place which even a very few men can defend. And therefore he would not entrust it to any but the most faithful men; and he had another reason too, because in that part of the city there is access to ships from the open sea. Therefore he did not think fit to entrust the keys of the place to those who had often excluded our armies.

See now how great is the difference between your lust and the authority of our ancestors; between your love and frenzy, and their wisdom and prudence. They took away from the Syracusans all access to the shore; you have given them the command of the sea. They would not allow a Syracusans to dwell in that part of the city which ships could approach; you appointed a Syracusan to command the fleet and the ships. You gave those men a part of our sovereignty, from whom they took a part of their own city; and you ordered those allies of ours to be obedient to the Syracusans, to whose aid it is owing that the Syracusans are obedient to us.

Cleomenes leaves the harbour in a Centuripan trireme. A Segestan vessel comes next; then a Tyndaritan ship; then one from Herbita, one from Heraclia, one from Apollonia, one from Haluntium; a fine fleet to look at, but helpless and useless because of the discharge of its fighting men, and of its rowers. That diligent praetor surveyed the fleet under his orders, as long as it was passing by his scene of profligate revelry. And he too, who for many days had not been seen, then for a short time afforded the sailors a sight of himself. The praetor of the Roman people stood in his slippers, clad in a purple cloak, and a tunic reaching down to his ankles, leaning on a prostitute on the shore. And since that time, many Sicilians and Roman citizens have often seen him in this very dress.

After the fleet had proceeded a little way, and had arrived, after five days' sailing, at Pachynum, the sailors, being compelled by hunger, gather the roots of the wild palm, of which there was a great quantity in that neighbourhood, as there is in most parts of Sicily, and support themselves in a miserable and wretched way on these. But Cleomenes, who considered himself another Verres, not only in luxury and worthlessness, but in power also, spent, like him, all his days in drinking in a tent which he had pitched on the seashore. But all of a sudden, while Cleomenes was drunk, and all his crews famishing, news is brought that a fleet of pirates is in the harbour of Odyssea; for that is the name of the place. But our fleet was in the harbour of Pachynum. But Cleomenes, because there was a garrison of troops (in name, if not in reality) in that place, fancied that, with the soldiers he drew from thence, he might make up his proper complement of sailors and rowers. The same system was found to nave been put in practice by that most covetous man with respect to the troops, that had been adopted towards the fleet, for only a few remained, and the rest had been discharged.

Cleomenes, as commander-in-chief, in a Centuripan quadrireme ordered the mast to be erected, the sails to be set, the anchor to be weighed, and made signal for the rest of the ships to follow him. This Centuripan vessel was an extraordinarily fast sailer; for, while Verres was praetor, no one had any opportunity of knowing what each ship could do with oars; although in order to do honour and to show favour to Cleomenes, there was a much smaller deficiency of rowers and soldiers in that quadrireme. The quadrireme, almost flying, had already got out of sight, while the other ships were still hard at work in their original station.

However those who were left behind displayed a good deal of courage. Although they were few in numbers, still they cried out, that whatever might be the event, they were willing to fight; and they preferred losing by the sword the little life and strength that hunger had left them. And if Cleomenes had not run away so long before, there would have been some means of making resistance, for that ship was the only one with a deck, and was large enough to have been a bulwark to the rest, and if it had been engaged in battle with the pirates, it would have looked like a city among those piratical galleys; but at that time the sailors being helpless, and deserted by their commander and prefect of the fleet, began of necessity to hold the same course that he had held.

Accordingly they all sailed towards Elorum, as Cleomenes had done; but they indeed were not so much flying from the attack of the pirates as following their commander. Then as each was last in flight, he was first in danger, for the pirates came upon the last ships first, and so the Haluntian vessel is taken first, which was commanded by an Haluntian of noble birth, Philarchus by name, whom the Locrians afterwards ransomed at the public expense from those pirates, and from whom, on his oath, you at the former pleading learnt the whole of the circumstances and their cause. The Apollonian vessel is taken next, and Anthropinus, its captain, is slain.