But when you were praetor, how could the censor either fear the law, by which he
was not bound, since he had not been created by the law; or fear your reproof for
having sold what he had bought of you? Let Metellus now detain my witnesses—let him
compel others to praise him, as he has attempted in many instances; only let him do
what he is doing. For whoever was treated by any one with such insult, with so much
ignominy? Every fifth year a census is taken of all Sicily. A census was taken when Peducaeus was praetor. When the five
years had elapsed in your praetorship, a census was taken again. The next year
Lucius Metellus forbids any mention to be made of your census; he says that censors
must be created afresh; and in the meantime he orders the census of Peducaeus to be
attended to. If an enemy of yours had done this to you, although the province would
have borne it with great equanimity, still it would have seemed the severe decision
of an enemy. A new friend, a voluntary relation did it. For he could not do
otherwise, if he wished to retain the province in its allegiance, if he wished to
live himself in safety in the province.
Are you waiting to see what these men also will decide? If he had deprived you of
your office, he would have treated you with less insult, than when he abrogated and
annulled the things which you had done in your office. Nor did he behave in this way
in that matter alone, but he had done the same in many other matters of the greatest
importance, before I arrived in Sicily. For
he ordered your friends, the palaestra people, to restore his property to Heraclius
the Syracusan, and the people of Bidis to restore his property to Epicrates, and
Appius Claudius his to his ward at Drepanum; and, if Letilius had not arrived in Sicily with letters a little too soon, in less than
thirty days Metellus would have annulled your whole three years' praetorship.
And, since I have spoken of that money which the censors
paid to you for your statue, it seems to me that I ought not to pass over that
method of raising money, which you exacted from the cities on presence of erecting
statues. For I see that the sum total of that money is very large, amounting to a
hundred and twenty thousand sesterces. This much is
proved by the evidence and letters of the cities. And he admits that, and indeed he
cannot say otherwise. What sort of conduct then are we to think that which he
denies, when these actions which he confesses are so infamous? For what do you wish
to be believed? That all that money was spent in statues?—Suppose it was. Still this
is by no means to be endured, that the allies should be robbed of so much money, in
order that statues of a most infamous robber may be placed in every alley, where it
appears scarcely possible to pass in safety.
But where in the world, or on what statues, was that enormous sum of money spent?
It will be spent, you will say. Let us, forsooth, wait for the recurrence of that
regular five years. If in this interval he has not spent it then at last we will
impeach him for embezzlement in the article of statues. He is brought before the
court as a criminal on many most important charges. We see that a hundred and twenty
thousand sesterces have been taken on this one
account. If you are condemned, you will not, I presume, trouble yourself about
having that money spent on statues within five years. If you are acquitted, who will
be so insane as to attack you in five years' time on the subject of the statues,
after you have escaped from so many and such grave charges? If, therefore, this
money has not been spent as yet, and if it is evident that it will not be spent, we
may understand that a plan has been found out by which he may take and appropriate
to himself a hundred and twenty thousand sesterces
at one swoop, and by which others too, if this is sanctioned by you, may take as
large sums as ever they please on similar grounds; so that we shall appear not to
deter men from taking money, but, as we approve of some methods of taking money, we
shall seem rather to be giving decent names to the basest actions.
In truth, suppose, for example, that Caius Verres had demanded a hundred and
twenty thousand sesterces from the people of
Centuripa, and had taken this money from them; there would have been no doubt, I
conceive, that, if that were proved, he must have been condemned.—What then? Suppose
he demanded three hundred thousand sesterces of the
same people; and compelled them to give them, and carried them off? Shall he be
acquitted because it was entered in the accounts that that money was given for
statues? I think not; unless, indeed, our object is to create, not an unwillingness
to take money on the part of our magistrates, but a cause for giving it on the part
of our allies. But if statues are a great delight to any one, and if any one is
greatly attracted by the honour and glory of having them raised to him, still he
must lay down these rules; first of all, that he must not take to his own house the
money given for those purposes; secondly, that there must be some limit to those
statues; and lastly, that at all events they must not be exacted from unwilling
people.
And concerning the embezzlement of the money, I ask of you whether the cities
themselves were accustomed to let out contracts for erecting statues to the man who
would take the contract on the best terms, or to appoint some surveyor to
superintend the erection of the statues, or to pay the money to you, or to any one
whom you appointed? For the statues were erected under the superintendence of those
men by whom that honour was paid to you—I am glad to hear it; but, if that money was
paid to Timarchides, cease I beg of you, to pretend that you were desirous of glory
and of monuments when you are detected is so evident a robbery. What then? Is there to be no limit to statues? But there must be.
Indeed, consider the matter in this way.
The city of Syracuse (to speak of
that city in preference to others) gave him a statue;—it is an honour: and gave his
father one;—a pretty and profitable picture of affection: and gave his son one;—this
may be endured, for they did not hate the boy: still how often, and for how many
individuals will you take statues from the Syracusans? You accepted one to be placed
in the forum. You compelled them to place one in the senate-house. You ordered them
to contribute money for those statues which were to be erected at Rome. You ordered that the same men should also
contribute as agriculturists, they did so. You ordered the same men also to pay
their contribution to the common revenue of Sicily; even that they did also. When one city contributed money on
so many different presences, and when the other cities did the same, does not the
fact itself warn you to think that some bounds must be put to this covetousness? But
if no city did this of its own accord; if all of them only paid you this money for
statues because they were induced to do so by your command, by fear, by force, by
injury; then, O ye immortal gods, can it be doubtful to any one, that, even if any
one were to establish a law, that it was allowable to accept money for statues,
still he would also establish one, that at all events it was not allowable to extort
it?
First, therefore, I will cite the whole of Sicily as a witness on this point; and Sicily declares to me with one voice that an immense sum of money was
extorted from her by force under the name of providing statues. For the deputations
of all the cities, in their common petitions—nearly all of which have arisen from
your injuries,—have inserted this demand also; “that they might not for the future
promise statues to any one till he had left the province.” There have been many praetors in
Sicily. Often, in the times of our
ancestors, the Sicilians have approached the senate; often in the memory of the
present generation; but it is your praetorship that has introduced and originated a
new kind of petition.