You see the word Verrutius?—You see the first letters untouched? you see the last part of the name, the tail of Verres, smothered in the erasure, as in the mud. The original accounts, O judges, are in exactly the same state as this copy.—What are you waiting for? What more do you want? You, Verres, why are you sitting there? Why do you delay? for either you must show us Verrutius, or confess that you yourself are Verrutius. The ancient orators are extolled, the Crassi and Antonii, because they had the skill to efface the impression made by an accusation with great clearness, and to defend the causes of accused persons with eloquence. It was not, forsooth, in ability only that they surpassed those who are now employed here as counsel, but also in good fortune. No one, in those times, committed such crimes as to leave no room for any defence; no one lived in such a manner that no part of his life was free from the most extreme infamy; no one was detected in such manifest guilt, that, shameless as he had been in the action, he seemed still more shameless if he denied it.

But now what can Hortensius do? Can he argue against the charges of avarice by panegyrics on his client's economy? He is defending a man thoroughly profligate, thoroughly licentious, thoroughly wicked. Can he lead your attention away from this infamy and profligacy of his, and turn them into some other direction by a mention of his bravery? But a man more inactive, more lazy, one who is more a man among women, a debauched woman among men, cannot be found.—But his manners are affable. Who is more obstinate more rude? more arrogant?—But still all this is without any injury to any one. Who has ever been more furious, more treacherous, and more cruel? With such a defendant and such a cause, what could all the Crassus's and Antonius's in the world do? This is all they would do, as I think, O Hortensius; they would have nothing to do with the cause at all, lest by contact with the impudence of another they might lose their own characters for virtue. For they come to plead causes free and unshackled, so as not, if they did not choose to act shamelessly in defending people, to be thought ungrateful for abandoning them.

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE SECOND PLEADING IN THE ACCUSATION AGAINST CAIUS VERRES.ON THE COURT RELATING TO CORN.

The Argument.

A great part of this speech is occupied with charges against Verres of extortion committed with respect to the decuriae or tenths. “The decuriae formed a part of the vectigalia of the Romans, and were paid by subjects whose territory, either by conquest, or by deditio, had become the property of the state. They consisted as the name denotes, of a tithe or tenth of the produce of the soil levied upon the cultivators (aratores) or occupiers (possessores) of the lands, which from being subject to this payment were called agri decumani . . . It appears from Cicero (c. Verr. act. ii. lib. iii..) that Romans, on reducing Sicily to a province, allowed to the old inhabitants a continuance of their ancient rights, and that, with some few exceptions, the territory of all the states was subjected, as formerly, to the payment of a tithe on corn, wine, oil, and the fruges minutae.“Fruges minutae” probably pulse—Riddle's Lat. Dict. in v. Minutus.It was further determined that place and time of paying these tithes to the decumani should ‘be and continue’ as settled by the law of king Hiero (Lex Hieronica), which enacted severe penalties against any arator who did not pay his due, as well as against the decumani who exacted more than their tenth . . . The name of decumani was also applied to the farmers of these tributes, who purchased them from the state, and then collected them on their own account.” In fact “the revenues which Rome derived from conquered countries, consisting chiefly of tolls, tithes, harbour duties, &c.... were chiefly let out, or, as the Romans expressed it, sold by the censors in Rome itself to the highest bidders, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 7.)... The tithes raised in the province of Sicily alone, with the exception of those of wine, oil, and garden produce, were not sold at Rome, but in the district of Sicily itself, according to a practice established by Hiero (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 64, 33). The persons who undertook the farming of the public revenue, of course, belonged to the wealthiest Romans. and down to the end of the republic, as well as during the earlier part of the empire, the farming of the public revenues was almost exclusively in the hands of the equites, whence the words equites and publicani are sometimes used as synonymous, (Cic. c. Verr. i. 51, 52, 71.) . . . The publicani had to give security to the state for the sum at which they bought one or more branches of revenue in a province; and as no one person was rich enough to give sufficient security, a number of equites generally united together and formed a company (socii, societas, or corpus ) which was recognised by the state, and by which they were enabled to carry on their undertakings on a large scale. The shares which each partner in such a company took in the business were called partes, and if they were small particulae. The responsible person in each company, and the one who contracted with the state, was called manceps, but there was also a magister to manage the business of each company, who resided at Rome, and kept up an extensive correspondence with the agents in the provinces, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. 74.) He seems to have held his office only for one year; his representative in the province was called submagister, who had to travel about and superintend the actual business of collecting the revenues . . . Nobody but a Roman citizen was allowed to become a member of a company of publicani; freedmen and slaves were excluded, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 39) No Roman magistrate, however, or governor of a province, was allowed to take any share whatever in a company of publicani, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 57), a regulation which was chiefly intended as a protection against the oppression of the provincials. . . The actual levying or collecting of the taxes in the provinces was performed by an inferior class of men, who were said operas publicanis dare, or esse in operis societatis, (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 41..) They were engaged by the publicani, and consisted of freemen as well as slaves, Romans as well as provincials.” (Cic. c. Verr. ii. iii. 77)—Smith, Dict. Ant. pp. 316, 806, vv. Decumae, Publicani.

Verres had broken the law which forbade a governor of a province to hold shares in a company which farmed the revenue; and as he had therefore a personal interest in increasing the taxes, he committed unexampled acts of extortion himself, and protected those who committed similar act. And in many other respects he had plundered the cultivators of the public domain, whom I have called in this translation “agriculturists,” not using the word “farmers,” by which word I have rendered “publicani.”

The medimnus, as we see, (ch. 45, 46), was equal to six modii, and contained within a fraction of twelve English gallons, or a bushel and a half.

Every man, O judges, who, without being prompted by any enmity, or stung by any private injury, or tempted by any reward, prosecutes another for the good of the republic, ought to consider, not only how great a burden he is liking upon himself at the time, but also how much trouble he is courting for the remainder of his life. For he imposes on himself a law of innocence, of moderation, and of all virtues, who demands from another an account of his life; and he does so the more if, as I said before, he does this being urges by no other motive except a desire for the common good.

For if any one assumes to himself to correct the manners of others, and to reprove their faults, who will pardon him, if he himself turn aside in any particular from the strict line of duty? Wherefore, a citizen of this sort is the more to he praised and beloved by all men for this reason also,—that he does not only remove a worthless citizen from the republic, but he also promises and binds himself to be such a man as to be compelled, not only by an ordinary inclination to virtue and duty, but by even some more unavoidable principle, to live virtuously and honourably.

And, therefore, O judges, that most illustrious and most eloquent man, Lucius Crassus, was often heard to say that he did not repent of anything so much as having ever proceeded against Caius Carbo: for by so doing he had his inclination as to everything less uncontrolled, and he thought, too, that his way of life was remarked by more people than he liked. And he, fortified as he was by the protection of his own genius and fortune, was yet hampered by this anxiety which he had brought upon himself, before his judgment was fully formed, at his entrance into life; on which account virtue and integrity is less, looked for from those who undertake this business as young men, than from those who do so at a riper age; for they, for the sake of credit and ostentation, become accusers of others before they have had time to take notice how much more free the life of those who have accused no one is. We who have already shown both what we could do, and what judgment we had, unless we could easily restrain our desires, should never, of our own accord, deprive ourselves of all liberty and freedom in our way of life.

And I have a greater burden on me than those who have accused other men, (if that deserve to be called a burden which you bear with pleasure and delight,)—but still I have in one respect undertaken a greater burden than others who have done the same thing, because all men are required to abstain most especially from those vices for which they have reproved another. Have you accused any thief or rapacious man? You must for ever avoid all suspicion of avarice. Have you prosecuted any spiteful or cruel man? You must for ever take care not to appear in any matter the least harsh or severe. A seducer? an adulterer? You must, take care most diligently that no trace of licentiousness be ever seen in your conduct. In short, everything which you have impeached in another must be earnestly avoided by you your self. In truth, not only no accuser, but no reprover even can be endured, who is himself detected in the vice which he reproves in another.