And therefore we have always so esteemed the island of Sicily for every purpose, as to think that whatever she could produce was not so much raised among the Sicilians as stored up in our own homes. When did she not deliver the corn which she was bound to deliver, by the proper day? When did she fail to promise us, of her own accord, whatever she thought we stood in need of? When did she ever refuse anything which was exacted of her? Therefore that illustrious Marcus Cato the wise called Sicily a storehouse of provisions for our republic—the nurse of the Roman people. But we experienced, in that long and difficult Italian war which we encountered, that Sicily was not only a storehouse of provisions to us, but was also an old and well-filled treasury left us by our ancestors; for, supplying us with hides, with tunics, and with corn, it clothed, armed, and fed our most numerous armies, without any expense at all to us.

What more need I say? How great are these services, O judges, which perhaps we are hardly aware we are receiving,—that we have many wealthy citizens, that they have a province with which they are connected, faithful and productive to which they may easily make excursions, where they may be welcome to engage in traffic; citizens, some of whom she dismisses with gain and profit by supplying them with merchandise, some she retains, as they take a fancy to turn farmers, or graziers, or traders in her land, or even to pitch in it their habitations and their homes. And this is no trifling advantage to the Roman people, that so vast a number of Roman citizens should be detained so near home by such a respectable and profitable business.

And since our tributary nations and our provinces are, as it were, farms belonging to the Roman people; just as one is most pleased with those farms which are nearest to one, so too the suburban character of this province is very acceptable to the Roman people. And as to the inhabitants themselves, O judges, such is their patience their virtue, and their frugality, that they appear to come very nearly up to the old-fashioned manners of our country, and not to those which now prevail. There is nothing then like the rest of the Greeks; no sloth, no luxury; on the contrary there is the greatest diligence in all public and private affairs, the greatest economy, and the greatest vigilance. Moreover, they are so fond of our nation that they are the only people where neither a publican nor a money-changer is unpopular.

And they have born the injuries of many of our magistrates with such a disposition, that they have never till this time fled by any public resolution to the altar of our laws and to your protection; although they endured the misery of that year which so prostrated them that they could not have been preserved through it, if Caius Marcellus had not come among them, by some special providence, as it were, in order that the safety of Sicily might be twice secured by the same family. Afterwards, too, they experienced that terrible government of Marcus Antonius. For they had had these principles handed down to them from their ancestors, that the kindnesses of the Roman people to the Sicilians had been so great, that they ought to think even the injustice of some of our men endurable.

The states have never before this man's time given any public evidence against any one. And they would have borne even this man himself, if he had sinned against them like a man, in any ordinary manner; or in short, in any one single kind of tyranny. But as they were unable to endure luxury, cruelty, avarice, and pride, when they had lost by the wickedness and lust of one man all their own advantages, all their own rights, and all fruits of the kindness of the senate and the Roman people, they determined either to avenge themselves for the injuries they had suffered from that man by your instrumentality or if they seemed to you unworthy of receiving aid and assistance at your hands, then to leave their cities and their homes, since they had already left their fields, having been driven out of them by his injuries.

With this design all the deputations begged of Lucius Metellus that he would come as his successor as early as possible; with these feelings, they so often bewailed their miseries to their patrons; agitated by this indignation, they addressed the consuls with demands, which seemed to be not demands, but charges against that tyrant. They contrived also, by their indignation and their tears, to draw me, whose good faith and moderation they had experienced, almost from the employment of my life, in order to become his accuser; an action with which both the settled plan of my life and my inclination are utterly inconsistent (although in this business I appear to have undertaken a cause which has more parts of defence than of accusation in it).

Lastly, the most noble men and the chief men of the whole province have come forward both publicly and privately; every city of the greatest authority—every city of the highest reputation—have come forward with the greatest earnestness to prosecute its oppressor for its injuries. But how, O judges, have they come? It seems to me that I ought to speak before you now on behalf of the Sicilians with more freedom than perhaps they themselves wish. For I shall consult their safety rather than their inclination. Do you think that there was ever any criminal in any province defended in his absence against the inquiry into his conduct urged by his accuser, with such influence, and with such zeal? The quaestors of both provinces, Sicily had two quaestors, one for the western or Lilybaean district, one for the Syracusan. who were so while he was praetor, stood close to me with their forces.

Those also who succeeded them, very zealous for his interests, liberally fed from his stores, were no less vehement against me. See how great was his influence who had four quaestors in one province, most zealous defenders and bulwarks of his cause; and the praetor and all his train so zealous in his interest, that it was quite plain, that it was not Sicily, which they had come upon when stripped bare, so much as Verres himself, who had left it loaded, which they looked upon as their province. They began to threaten the Sicilians, if they decreed any deputations to make statements against him; to threaten any one who had gone on any such deputation, to make most liberal promises to others, if they spoke well of him; to detain by force and under guard the most damaging witnesses of his private transactions, whom we had summoned by word of mouth to give evidence.

And though all this was done, yet know ye, that there was but one single city, that, namely, of the Mamertines, which by public resolution sent ambassadors to speak in his favour. But you heard the chief man of that embassy, the most noble man of that state, Caius Eleius, speak on his oath, and say, that Verres had had a transport of the largest size built at Messana, the work being contracted for at the expense of the city. And that same ambassador of the Mamertines, his panegyrist, said that he had not only robbed him of his private property, but had also carried away his sacred vessels, and the images of the Di Penates, which he had received from his ancestors, out of his house. A noble panegyric; when the one business of the ambassadors is discharged by two operations, praising the man and demanding back what has been stolen by him. And on what account that very city is friendly to him, shall be told in its proper place. For you will find that those very things which are the causes of the Mamertines bearing him good-will, are themselves sufficiently just causes for his condemnation. No other city, O judges, praises him by public resolution.

The power of supreme authority has had so much influence with a very few men, not in the cities, that either some most insignificant people of the most miserable and deserted towns were found who would go to Rome without the command of their people or their senate, or on the other hand, those who had been voted as ambassadors against him, and who had received the public evidence to deliver, and the public commission, were detained by force or by fear. And I am not vexed at this having happened in a few instances, in order that the rest of the cities, so numerous, so powerful, and so wise,—that all Sicily, in short, should have all the more influence with you when you see that they could be restrained by no force, could be hindered by no danger, from making experiment whether the complaints of your oldest and most faithful allies had any weight with you.

For as to what some of you may, perhaps, have heard, that he had a public encomium passed upon him by the Syracusans, although in the former pleading you learnt from the evidence of Heraclius the Syracusan what sort of encomium it was, still it shall be proved to you in another place how the whole matter really stands as far as that city is concerned For you shall see clearly that no man has ever been so hated by any people as that man both is and has been by the Syracusans. But perhaps it is only the native Sicilians who are persecuting him: the Roman citizens who are trading in Sicily defend him, love him, desire his safety. First of all, if that were the case, still in this trial for extortion, which has been established for the sake of the allies, according to that law and forms of proceeding which the allies are entitled to, you ought to listen to the complaints of the allies.

But you were able to see clearly in the former pleading, that many Roman citizens from Sicily, most honourable men, gave evidence about most important transactions, both as to injuries which they had received themselves, and injuries which they knew had been inflicted on others. I, O judges, affirm in this way what I know. I seem to myself to have done an action acceptable to the Sicilians in seeking to avenge their injuries with my own labour, at my own peril, and at the risk of incurring enmity in some quarters; and I am sure that this which I am doing is not less acceptable to our own citizens, who think that the safety of their rights, of their liberty, of their properties and fortunes, consists in tho condemnation of that man.

On which account, while speaking of his Sicilian praetorship, I will not object to your listening to me on this condition, that if he has been approved of by any description of men whatever; whether of Sicilians or of our own citizens; if he has been approved of by any class of men, whether agriculturists, or graziers, or merchants; if he has not been the common enemy and plunderer of all these men,—if, in short, he has ever spared any man in any thing, then you, too, shall spare him. Now, as soon as Sicily fell to him by lot as his province, immediately at Rome, while he was yet in the city, before he departed, he began to consider within himself and to deliberate with his friends, by what means he might make the greatest sum of money in that province in one year. He did not like to learn while he was acting, (though he was not entirely ignorant and inexperienced in the oppression of a province,) but he wished to arrive in Sicily with all his plans for plunder carefully thought of and prepared.

Oh how correct was the augury diffused by common report and common conversation among the people in that province! when from his very name men augured in a jesting way what he would do in the province. Indeed, who could doubt, when they recollected his flight and robbery in his quaestorship—when they considered his spoliation of temples and shrines in his lieutenancy—when they saw in the forum the plunder of his praetorship—what sort of man he was likely to prove in the fourth act of his villainy? And that you may be aware that he inquired at Rome not only into the different kinds of robbery which he might be able to execute, but into the very names of his victims, listen to this most certain proof, by which you will be able more easily to form an opinion of his unexampled impudence.