I will reserve for another time that fruit of praise which may be derived from a long uninterrupted speech. At present I must support this accusation by documentary evidence, by witnesses, by letters of private individuals and of public bodies, and by various other kinds of proof. The whole of this contest is between you and me, O Hortensius. I will speak openly. If I thought that you were contending with me in the matter of speaking, and of getting rid of the charges I bring against your client in this cause, I, too, would devote much pains to mounting an elaborate accusation, and to dilating on my charges. Now, since you have determined to contend against me with artifice, not so much in obedience to the promptings of your own nature, as from consulting his occasions and his cause, it is necessary for me to oppose conduct of that sort with prudence.

Your plan is, to begin to answer me after two sets of games have been celebrated; mine is to have the adjournment The Latin is, ut comperindinem. “Comperendinare is, when the cause has been pleaded on each side, to order that on the third day both the defendant and the prosecutor appear to speak a second time.”—Hottoman. “The parties appeared before the judex on the third day (comperendinatio), unless the praetor had deferred the judicium for some sufficient reason.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 529. v Judex. over before the first series. And the result will be, that that plan of yours will be thought crafty, but this determination of mine necessary. But as for what I had begun to say,—namely, that the contest is between you and me, this is it,—I, when I had undertaken this cause at the request of the Sicilians, and had thought it a very honourable and glorious thing for me that they were willing to make experiment of my integrity and diligence, who already knew by experience my innocence and temperance: then, when I had undertaken this business, I proposed to myself some greater action also by which the Roman people should be able to see my goodwill towards the republic.

For that seemed to me to be by no means worthy of my industry and efforts, for that man to be brought to trial by me who had been already condemned by the judgment of all men, unless that intolerable influence of yours, and that grasping nature which you have displayed for some years in many trials, was interposed also in the case of that desperate man. But no, since all this dominion and sovereignty of yours over the courts of justice delights you so much, and since there are some men who are neither ashamed of their licentiousness and their infamy, nor weary of it, and who, as if on purpose, seem to wish to encounter hatred and unpopularity from the Roman people, I profess that I have undertaken this,—a great burden perhaps, and one dangerous to myself, but still worthy of my applying myself to it with all the vigour of my age, and all diligence.

And since the whole order of the senate is weighed down by the discredit brought on it by the wickedness and audacity of a few, and is overwhelmed by the infamy of the tribunals, I profess myself an enemy to this race of men, an accuser worthy of their hatred, a persevering, a bitter adversary. I arrogate this to myself, I claim this for myself, and I will carry out this enmity in my magistracy, and from that post in which the Roman people has willed that from the next first of January I shall act in concert with it in matters concerning the republic, and concerning wicked men. I promise the Roman people that this shall be the most honourable and the fairest employment of my aedileship. I warn, I forewarn, I give notice beforehand to those men who are wont either to put money down, to undertake for others, to receive money, or to promise money, or to act as agents in bribery, or as go-betweens in corrupting the seat of judgment, and who have promised their influence or their impudence in aid of such a business, in this trial to keep their hands and inclinations from this nefarious wickedness.

Hortensius will then be consul with the chief command and authority, but I shall be aedile—that is, I shall be a little more than a private individual; and yet this business, which I promise that I am going to advocate, is of such a nature, so pleasing and agreeable to the Roman people, that the consul himself will appear in this cause, if that be possible, even less than a private individual in comparison of me. All those things shall not only be mentioned, but even, where certain matters have been explained, shall be fully discussed, which for the last ten years, ever since the office of the judge has been transferred to the senate, has been nefariously and wickedly done in the decision of judicial matters.

The Roman people shall know from me why it is that when the equestrian body supplied the judges for nearly fifty years together, not even the slightest suspicion ever arose of bribes having been accepted for the purpose of influencing a decision; why it is, I say, when the judicial authority was transferred to the senatorial body, and the power That is to say, when the power of appealing to the tribunes of the people was taken away. of the Roman people over every one of us was taken away, Quintus Calidius, when he was condemned, said that a man of praetorian rank could not honestly be condemned at a less price than three hundred thousand sesterces; why it is that when Publius Septimius, a senator, was condemned for extortion, when Quintus Hortensius was praetor, damages were assessed against him, including money which he had received as judge to decide causes which came before him;

why it is, that in the case of Caius Herennius, and in that of Caius Popillius, senators, both of whom were convicted of peculation—why it is, that in the case of Marcus Atilius, who was convicted of treason—this was made plain,—that they had all received money for the purpose of influencing their judicial decisions; why it is, that senators have been found who, when Caius Verres, as praetor of the city, gave out the lots, voted against the criminal whom they were condemning without having inquired into his case; why it is, that a senator was found who, when he was judge, took money in one and the same trial both from the defendant to distribute among the judges, and from the accuser to condemn the defendant.

But how shall I adequately complain of that stain, that disgrace, that calamity of the whole senatorial order,—that this thing actually happened in the city while the senatorial order furnished the judges, that the votes of men on their oaths were marked by coloured tablets? I pledge myself that I will urge all these things with diligence and with strictness. And what do you suppose will be my thoughts, if I find in this very trial any violation of the laws committed in any similar manner? especially when I can prove by many witnesses that Caius Verres often said in Sicily, in the hearing of many persons, “that he had a powerful friend, in confidence in whom he was plundering the province; and that he was not seeking money for himself alone, but that he had so distributed the three years of his Sicilian praetorship, that he should say he did exceedingly well, if he appropriated the gains of one year to the augmentation of his own property, those of the second year to his patrons and defenders, and reserved the whole of the third year, the most productive and gainful of all, for the judges.”