You have heard Quintus Varius say, that his agents paid that man a hundred and thirty thousand sesterces for a decision in his cause. You recollect that the evidence of Quintus Varius was corroborated, and that this whole affair was proved by the testimony of Caius Sacerdos, a most excellent man. You know that Cnaeus Sertius and Marcus Modius, Roman knights, and that six hundred Roman citizens besides, and many Sicilians, said that they had given that money for decisions in their causes. And why need I dilate upon this accusation when the whole matter is set plainly forth in the evidence? Why should I argue about what no one can doubt? Or will any man in the world doubt that he set up his judicial decisions for sale in Sicily, when at Rome he sold his very edict and all his decrees? and that he received money from the Sicilians in issuing extraordinary decrees, when he actually made a demand on Marcus Octavius Ligur for giving a decision on his cause?

For what method of extorting money did he ever omit? What method did he fail to devise, even if it had escaped the notice of every one else? Was anything in the Sicilian states ever sought to be obtained in which there is any honour, any power, or any authority, that you did not make it a source of your own gain, and sell it to the best bidder? At the former pleading evidence was given of both a public and a private nature; deputies from Centuripa, from Halesa, from Catina, and from Panormus, and from many other cities gave evidence; but now, also, a great many private individuals have been examined, by whose testimony you have ascertained that no one in all Sicily for the space of three years was ever made senator in any city for nothing,—no one by vote, as their laws prescribe,—no one except by his command, or by his letters; and that in the appointment of all these senators, not only were no votes given, but there was not even any consideration of those families from which it was lawful to select men for that body, nor of their income, nor of their age; nor were any other of the Sicilian laws of the slightest influence.

Whoever wished to be made a senator, though he was a boy, though he was unworthy, though he was of a class from which it was not lawful to take senators; still, if he paid money enough to appear in his eyes a fit man to gain his object, so it always was. Not only the laws of the Sicilians had no influence in this matter, but even those which had been given to them by the senate and people of Rome had none either. For the laws which he makes who has the supreme command given to him by the Roman people, and authority to make laws conferred on him by the senate, ought to be considered the laws of the senate and people of Rome.

The citizens of Halesa, who were till lately in the enjoyment of their own laws, in return for the numerous and great services and good deeds done both by themselves and by their ancestors to our republic, lately in the consulship of Lucius Licinius and Quintus Mucius, requested laws from our senate, as they had disputes among themselves about the elections into their senate. The senate, by a very honourable decree, voted that Caius Claudius Pulcher, the son of Appius the praetor, should give them laws to regulate their elections into their senate. Caius Claudius, taking as his counselors all the Marcelli who were then alive, with their advice gave laws to the men of Halesa in which he laid down many rules about the age of the men who might be elected; that no one might be under thirty years of age; about trade,—that no one engaged in it might be elected; about their income, and about all other matters; all which regulations prevailed till that man became praetor by the authority of our magistrates, and with the cordial good-will of the men of Halesa. But from him even a crier who was desirous of it, bought that rank for a sum of money, and boys sixteen and seventeen years old purchased the title of senator; and that which the men of Halesa, our most ancient and faithful allies and friends, had petitioned, and that successfully, at Rome, to have put on such a footing that it might not be lawful for men to be elected even by vote, he now made easy to be obtained by bribery.