Even suppose they did not say this, still, would it not be impossible for you to
avoid confessing it? See and consider what defence you are going to adopt; for then
you will understand that you must confess this about the statues. For I am informed that your cause is
planned out in this way by your advocates, men of great ingenuity, and that you are
instructed and trained by them in this way; that, as each influential and honourable
man from the province of Sicily gives an
energetic testimony against you, as many of the lending Sicilians have already done
to a great extent, you are immediately to say to your defenders, “That man is an
enemy of mine because he is an agriculturist. And so, I suppose, you have it in your
mind to set aside the class of agriculturists, saving that they have come with a
hostile and inimical disposition towards Verres because he was a little strict in
collecting the tenths. The agriculturists, then, are all your enemies, all your
adversaries. There is not one of them who does not wish you dead. Altogether you are
admirably well off, when that order and class of men which is the most virtuous and
honourable, by which both the republic in general, and most especially that province
upheld, as fixedly hostile to you.
However, be it so; another time we will consider of the disposition of the
agriculturists and of their injuries. For the present I assume, what you grant me,
that they are most hostile to you. You say, forsooth, on account of the tenths. I
grant that; I do not inquire whether they are enemies with or without reason. What
then is the meaning of those gilt equestrian statues which greatly offend the
feelings and eyes of the Roman people, near the temple of
Vulcan? For I see an inscription on them
stating that the agriculturists had presented one of them. If they gave this statue
to do you honour, they are not your enemies. Let us believe the witnesses; for then
they were consulting your honour, now they are regarding their own consciences. But
if they presented the statues under the compulsion of fear, you must confess that
you exacted money in the province on account of statues by violence and fear. Choose
whichever alternative you like.
In truth I would willingly now abandon this charge about the statues, to have you
admit to me, what would be most honourable to you, that the agriculturists
contributed this money for a statue to do you honour, of their own free will. Grant
me this. In a moment you cut from under your feet the principal part of your
defence. For then you will not be able to say that the agriculturists were angry
with and enemies to you. O singular cause; O miserable and ruinous defence; for the
defendant, and he too a defendant who has been praetor in Sicily, to be unwilling to receive an admission from
his accuser that the agriculturists erected him a statue of their own free will,
that they have a good opinion of him, that they are his friends, that they desire
his safety! He is afraid of your believing this, for he is overwhelmed with the
evidence given against him by the agriculturists.
I will avail myself of what is granted to me; at all events you must judge that
those men, who, as he himself wishes it to be believed, are most hostile to him, did
not contribute money for his honour and for his monuments of their own free will.
And that this may be most easily understood, ask any one you please of the witnesses
whom I shall produce, who are witnesses from Sicily, whether a Roman citizen or a Sicilian, and one too who
appears most hostile to you, who says that he has been plundered by you, whether he
contributed anything in his own name to the statue? You will not find one man to
deny it In truth they all contributed.
Do you think then that any one will doubt that he who ought to be most hostile to
you, who has received the severest injuries from you, paid money on account of a
statue to you because he was compelled by violence and authoritative command, not
out of kindness and by his own free will? And I have neither counted up, nor been
able to count, O judges, the amount of this money, which is very large, and which
has been most shamelessly extorted from unwilling men, so as to estimate how much
was extorted from agriculturists, how much from traders who trade at Syracuse, at Agrigentum, at Panormus, at Lilybaeum; since
you see by even his own confession that it was extorted from most unwilling
contributors.
I come now to the cities of Sicily, in
which case it is exceedingly easy to form an opinion of their inclination. Did the
Sicilians also contribute against their will? It is not probable. In truth it is
evident that Caius Verres so conducted himself during his praetorship in Sicily, that, as he could not satisfy both parties,
both the Sicilians and the Romans, he considered rather his duty to our allies, than
his ambition, which might have prompted him to gratify the citizens. And therefore I
saw him called in an inscription at Syracuse, not only the patron of that island, but also the saviour of
it. What a great expression is this! so great that it cannot be expressed by any
single Latin word. He in truth is a saviour, who has given salvation. In his name
days of festival are kept—that fine Verrean festival—not as if it was the festival
of Marcellus, but instead of the Marcellean festival, which they abolished at his
command. His triumphal arch is in the forum at Syracuse, on which his son stands, naked; and he himself from
horseback looks down on the province which has been stripped bare by himself. His
statues are in every place; which seem to show this, that he very nearly erected as
many statues at Syracuse as he had
taken away from it. And even at Rome we
see an inscription in his honour carved at the foot of the statues, in letters of
the largest size, “that that were given by the community of Sicily.” Why were they given? How can any one be
induced to believe that such great honours were paid to him by people against their
will?