Lately, when Marcus Aurelius Scaurus made the demand, because he said that he as
quaestor had been prevented by force at Ephesus from taking his servant out of the temple of Diana, who had
taken refuge in that asylum, Pericles, an Ephesian, a most noble man, was summoned
to Rome, because he was accused of having
been the author of that wrong. If you had stated to the senate that you, a
lieutenant, had been so treated at Lampsacus, that your companions were wounded, your lictor slain, you
yourself surrounded and nearly burnt, and that the ringleaders and principal actors
and chiefs in that transaction were Themistagoras and Thessalus, who, you write,
were so, who would not have been moved? Who would not have thought that he was
taking care of himself in chastising the injury which had been done to you? Who
would not have thought that not only your cause but that the common safety was at
stake in that matter? In truth the name of lieutenant Cicero
here, one may almost say, plays on the meanings of the word legatus, which means not only a lieutenant, but also an ambassador
The persons of ambassadors have always, by the laws of nations, been considered to
be sacred but Verres was not an ambassador, but a lieutenant. ought to be
such as to pass in safety not only among the laws of allies, but even amid the arms
of enemies.
This crime committed at Lampsacus is very
great; a crime of lust and of the most infamous desires. Listen now to a tale of
avarice, but little less iniquitous of its sort. He demanded of the Milesians a ship
to attend him to Myndus as a guard. They
immediately gave him a light vessel, a beautiful one of its class, splendidly
adorned and armed. With this guard he went to Myndus. For, as to the wool being public property which he carried
off from the Milesians,—as for his extravagance on his arrival,—as for his insults
and injuries offered to the Milesian magistrates, although they might be stated not
only truly, but also with vehemence and with indignation, still I shall pass them
all over, and reserve them for another time to be proved by evidence. At present
listen to this which cannot possibly be suppressed, and at the same time cannot be
mentioned with proper dignity.
He orders the soldiers and the crew to return from Myndus to Miletus on
foot; he himself sold that beautiful light vessel, picked out of the ten ships of
the Milesians, to Lucius Magius and Lucius Rabius, who were living at Myndus. These are the men whom the senate lately
voted should be considered in the number of enemies. In this vessel they sailed to
all the enemies of the Roman people, from Dianium, which is in Spain,
to Senope, which is in Pontus. O ye
immortal gods! the incredible avarice, the unheard-of audacity of such a proceeding!
Did you dare to sell a ship of the Roman fleet, which the city of Miletus had assigned to you to attend upon you?
If the magnitude of the crime, if the opinion of men, had no influence on you, did
this, too, never occur to you,—that so illustrious and so noble a city would he a
witness against you of this most wicked theft, or rather of this most abominable
robbery?
Or because at that time Cnaeus Dolabella attempted, at your request, to punish the
man who had been in command of that vessel, and who had reported to the Milesians
what had been done, and had ordered his report, which according to their laws had
been inserted in the public registers, to be erased, did you, on that account, fancy
that you had escaped from that accusation? That opinion of yours has much deceived you, and on
many occasions. For you have always fancied, and especially in Sicily, that you had taken sufficient precautions
for your defence, when you had either forbidden anything to be mentioned in the
public records, or had compelled that which had been so mentioned to be erased. How
vain that step is, although in the former pleading you learnt it in the instance of
many cities of Sicily, yet you may learn it
again in the case of this city. The citizens are, indeed, obedient to the command,
as long as they are present who give the command. As soon as they are gone, they not
only set down that which they have been forbidden to set down, but they also write
down the reason why it was not entered in the public records at the time.
Those documents remain at Miletus,
and will remain as long as that city lasts. For the Milesian people had built ten
ships by command of Lucius Marcus out of the taxes imposed by the Roman people, as
the other cities of Asia had done, each in
proportion to its amount of taxation Wherefore they entered on their public records,
that one of the ten had been lost, not by the sudden attack of pirates, but by the
robbery of a lieutenant,—not by the violence of a storm, but by this horrible
tempest which fell upon the allies.
There are at Rome Milesian ambassadors, most noble men and the chief men of the
city, who, although they are waiting with apprehension for the month of February
It was in the month of February that the senate was used to
give audience to the deputies from the provinces: and the consuls elect, as has
been said before, were notoriously in the interest of Verres. and the time
of the consuls elect, yet they not only do not dare to deny such an atrocious action
when they are asked about it, but they cannot forbear speaking of it unasked if they
are present. They will tell you, I say, being induced by regard to religion, and by
their fear of their laws at home, what has become of that vessel. They will declare
to you that Caius Verres has behaved himself like a most infamous pirate in regard
to that fleet which was built against pirates. When Caius Malleolus, the quaestor of Dolabella, had
been slain, he thought that two inheritances had come to him; one, that of his
quaestorian office, for he was immediately desired by Dolabella to be his
proquaestor; the other, of a guardianship, for as he was appointed guardian of the
young Malleolus, he immediately invaded his property.