There were many statues of brass; among them a statue of Himera herself, of
marvellous beauty, made in the shape and dress of a woman, after the name of the
town and of the river. There was also a statue of the poet Stesichorus, aged,
stooping,—made, as men think, with the most exceeding skill,—who was, indeed, a
citizen of Himera, but who both was and is in the highest renown and estimation over
all Greece for his genius. These things he
coveted to a degree of madness. There is also, which I had almost passed over, a
certain she-goat made, as even we who are skilled in these matters can judge, with
wonderful skill and beauty. These, and other works of art, Scipio had not thrown
away like a fool, in order that an intelligent man like Verres might have an
opportunity of carrying them away, but he had restored them to the people of
Thermae; not that he himself had not gardens, or a suburban villa, or some place or
other where he could put them; but, if he had taken them home, they would not long
have been called Scipio's, but theirs to whom they had come by his death. Now they
are placed in such places that it seems to me they will always seem to be Scipio's,
and so they are called.
When that fellow claimed those things, and the subject was mooted in the senate,
Sthenius resisted his claim most earnestly, and urged many arguments, for he is
among the first men in all Sicily for
fluency of speech. He said that it was more honourable for the men of Thermae to
abandon their city than to allow the memorials of their ancestors, the spoils of
their enemies, the gifts of a most illustrious man, the proofs of the alliance and
friendship with the Roman people, to be taken away out of their city. The minds of
all were moved. No one was found who did not agree that it was better to die. And so
Verres found this town almost the only one in the whole world from which he could
not carry off anything of that sort belonging to the community, either by violence,
or by stealth, or by his own absolute power, or by his interest, or by bribery. But,
however, all this covetousness of his I will expose another time; at present I must
return to Sthenius.
Verres being furiously enraged against Sthenius, renounces the connection of
hospitality with him, leaves his house, and departs; The Latin
is, “domo ejus emigrat, atque adeo
exit, nam jam ante migrarat.” Emigrat has only a simple meaning; exit is said of him who “goes forth without any baggage; he then
appeared migrasse when he plundered Sthenius of
all his furniture and plate, and removed it to his own house.”—Garaton.
for, indeed, he had moved his quarters before. The greatest enemies of Sthenius
immediately invite him to their houses, in order to inflame his mind against
Sthenius by inventing lies and accusing him. And these enemies were, Agathinus, a
man of noble birth, and Dorotheus, who had married Callidama, the daughter of that
same Agathinus, of whom Verres had heard. So he preferred migrating to the
son-in-law of Agathinus. Only one night elapsed before he became so intimate with
Dorotheus, that, as one might say, they had everything in common. He paid as great
attention to Agathinus as if he had been some connection or relation of his own. He
appeared even to despise that statue of Himera, because the figure and features of
his hostess delighted him much more.
Therefore he began to instigate the men to create some danger for Sthenius, and to
invent some accusation against him. They said they had nothing to allege against
him. On this he openly declared to them, and promised to them that they might prove
whatever they pleased against Sthenius if they only laid the information before him.
So they do not delay. They immediately bring Sthenius before him; they say that the
public documents have been tampered with by him. Sthenius demands, that as his own
fellow-citizens are prosecuting him on a charge of tampering with the public
documents, and as there is a right of action on such a charge according to the laws
of the Thermitani since the senate and people of Rome had restored to the Thermitani their city, and their territory
and their laws, because they had always remained faithful and friendly; and since
Publius Rupilius had afterwards, in obedience to a degree of the senate, given laws
to the Sicilinus, acting with the advice of ten commissioners, according to which
the citizens were to use their own laws in their actions with one another; and singe
Verres himself had the same regulation contained in his edict;—on all these
accounts, I say, he claims of Verres to refer the matter to their own laws.
That man, the justest of all men, and the most remote from covetousness, declares
that he will investigate the affair himself, and bids him come prepared to plead his
cause at the eighth hour. It was not difficult to see what that dishonest and wicked
man was designing. And, indeed, he did not himself very much disguise it, and the
woman could not hold her tongue. It was understood that his intention was, that,
after he, without any pleading taking place, and without any witnesses being called,
had condemned Sthenius, then, infamous that he was, he should cause the man, a man
of noble birth, of mature age, and his own host, to be cruelly punished by
scourging. And as this was notorious, by the advice of his friends and connections,
Sthenius fled from there to Rome. He
preferred trusting himself to the winter and to the waves, rather than not escape
that common tempest and calamity of all the Sicilians.
That punctual and diligent man is ready at the eighth hour. He orders Sthenius to
be summoned; and, when he sees that he does not appear, he begins to burn with
indignation, and to go mad with rage; to despatch The Latin
word is Venereus: the officers who attended on
the Roman magistrate in Sicily were so
called from Venus Erycina, who was the patron goddess of all the west of
Sicily. officers to his house;
to send horsemen in every direction about his farms and country houses,—and as he
kept waiting there till some certain news could be brought to him, he did not leave
the court till the third hour of the night. The next day he came down again the
first thing in the morning; he calls Agathinus, he bids him make his statement about
the public documents against Sthenius in his absence. It was a cause of such a
character, that, even though he had no adversary in court, and a judge unfriendly to
the defendant, still he could not find anything to say.
So that he confined himself to the mere statement that, when Sacerdos was praetor,
Sthenius had tampered with the public documents. He had scarcely said this when
Verres gives sentence “that Sthenius seems to have tampered with the public
documents,” and, moreover, this man so devoted to Venus, added this besides, with no
precedent for, no example of, such an addition, “For that action he should adjudge
five hundred thousand sesterces to Venus Erycina
out of the property of Sthenius.” And immediately he began to sell his property; and
he would have sold it, if there had been ever so little delay in paying him the
money.
After it was paid, he was not content with this iniquity; he gave notice openly
from the seat of justice, and from the tribunal, “That if any one wished to accuse
Sthenius in his absence of a capital charge, he was ready to take the charge.” And
immediately he began to instigate Agathinus, his new relation and host, to apply
himself to such a cause, and to accuse him. But he said loudly, in the hearing of
every one, that he would not do so, and that he was not so far an enemy to Sthenius
as to say that he was implicated in any capital crime. Just at this moment a man of
the name of Pacilius, a needy and worthless man, arrives on a sudden. He says, that
he is willing to accuse the man in his absence if he may. And Verres tells him that
he may, that it is a thing often done, and that he will receive the accusation. So
the charge is made. Verres immediately issues an edict that Sthenius is to appear at
Syracuse on the first of
December.
He, when he had reached Rome, and had a
sufficiently prosperous voyage for so unfavourable a time of year, and had found
everything more just and gentle than the disposition of the praetor, his own guest,
related the whole matter to his friends, and it appeared to them all cruel and
scandalous, as indeed it was. Therefore Cnaeus Lentulus and Lucius Gellius the consuls immediately
propose in the senate that it be established as a law, if it so seem good to the
conscript fathers, “That men be not proceeded against on capital charges in the
provinces while they are absent.” They relate to the senate the whole case of
Sthenius, and the cruelty and injustice of Verres. Verres, the father of the
praetor, was present in the senate, and with tears begged all the senators to spare
his son, but he had not much success. For the inclination of the senate for the
proposal of the consuls was extreme. Therefore opinions were delivered to this
effect; “that as Sthenius had been proceeded against in his absence, it seemed good
to the senate that no trial should take place in the case of an absent man; and if
anything had been done, it seemed good that it should not be ratified.”
On that day nothing could be done, because it was so late, and because his father
had found men to waste the time in speaking. Afterwards the elder Verres goes to all
the defenders and connections of Sthenius; he begs and entreats them not to attack
his son, not to be anxious about Sthenius; he assures them that he will take care
that he suffers no injury by means of his son; that with that object he will send
trustworthy men into Sicily both by sea and
land. And it wanted now about thirty days of the first of December, on which day he
had ordered Sthenius to appear at Syracuse.
The friends of Sthenius are moved; they hope that by the letters and messengers of
the father the Bon may be called off from his insane attempt. The cause is not
agitated any more in the senate. Family messengers come to Verres, and bring him
letters from his father before the first of December, before any steps whatever had
been taken by him in Sthenius's affair; and at the same time many letters about the
same business are brought to him from many of his friends and intimates. On this he, who had never any
regard either for his duty or his danger, or for affection, or for humanity, when
put in competition with his covetousness, did not think, as far as he was advised,
that the authority of his father, nor, as far as he was entreated, that his
inclination was to be preferred to the gratification of his own evil passions. On
the morning of the first of December, according to his edict, he orders Sthenius to
be summoned.
If your father, at the request of any friend, whether influenced by kindness or
wishing to curry favour with him, had made that petition to you, still the
inclination of your father ought to have had the greatest weight with you; but when
he begged it of you for the sake of your own safety from a capital charge, and when
he had sent trustworthy men from home, and when they had come to you at a time when
the whole affair was still intact, could not even then a regard, if not for
affection, at least for your own safety, bring you back to duty and to common sense?
He summons the defendant. He does not answer. He summons the accuser. (Mark, I pray
you, O judges; see how greatly fortune herself opposed that man's insanity, and see
at the same time what chance aided the cause of Sthenius;) the accuser, Marcus
Pacilius, being summoned, (I know not how it came about,) did not answer, did not
appear.
If Sthenius had been accused while present, if he had been detected in a manifest
crime, still, as his accuser did not appear, Sthenius ought not to have been
condemned. In truth, if a defendant could be condemned though his accuser did not
appear, I should not have come from Vibo to Velia in a little boat through the weapons of fugitive slaves, and
pirates, and through yours, at a time when all that haste of mine at the peril of my
life was to prevent your being taken out of the list of defendants if I did not
appear on the appointed day. If then in this trial of yours that was the most
desirable thing by you,—namely, for me not to appear when I was summoned, why did
you not think that it ought also to serve Sthenius that his accuser had not
appeared? He so managed the matter that the end entirely corresponded to the
beginning; the same man against whom he had received an accusation while he was
absent, he condemns now when the accuser is absent.
At the very outset news was brought to him that the matter had been agitated in
the senate, (which his father also had written him word of at great length,) that
also in the public assembly Marcus Palicanus, a tribune of the people, had made a
complaint to their of the treatment of Sthenius; lastly, that I myself had pleaded
the cause of Sthenius before this college of the tribunes of the people, as by their
edict no one was allowed to remain in Rome
who had been condemned on a capital A “capital charge” at
Rome does not necessarily mean one
affecting the life of the prisoner, but his status as a free citizen. A charge
which involved infamia, disfranchisement, was
res capitalis; though as it is impossible to
render caput when used in this sense so as to
give its accurate meaning, I have been forced occasionally to render it
“life.” charge; and that when I had explained the business as I have now
done to you, and had proved that this had no right to be considered a condemnation,
the tribunes of the people passed this resolution, and that it was unanimously
decreed by them, “That Sthenius did not appear to be prohibited by their edict from
remaining in Rome.”
When this news was brought to him, he for a while was alarmed and agitated; he
turned the blunt end of his pen To turn the pen was to erase
what had been written “At one end the stilus was sharpened to a point for
scratching the characters on the wax, while the other end, being fat and circular
served to render the surface of the tablets smooth again, and so to obliterate
what had been written. Thus vertere stilum means
to erase, and hence to correct”—Smith, Dict. Ant. in v. ... on to his
tablets, and by so doing he overturned the whole of his cause. For he left himself
nothing which could be defended by any means whatever. For if he were to urge in his
defence, “It is lawful to take a charge against an absent man, no law forbids this
being done in a province,” he would seem to be putting forth a faulty and worthless
defence, but still it would be some sort of a defence. Lastly, he might employ that
most desperate refuge, of saying, that he had acted ignorantly; that he had thought
that it was lawful. And although this is the worst defence of all, still he would
seem to have said something. He erases that from his tablets which he had put down,
and enters “that the charge was brought against Sthenius while he was present.”
Here consider in how many toils he involved himself; from which he could never
disentangle himself. In the first place, he had often and openly declared himself in
Sicily from his tribunal, and had
asserted to many people in private conversation, that it was lawful to take a charge
against an absent man; that he, for example, had done so himself—which he had. That
he was in the habit of constantly saying this, was stated at the former pleading by
Sextus Pompeius Chlorus, a man of whose virtue I have before spoken highly; and by
Cnaeus Pompeius Theodorus, a man approved of by the judgment of that most
illustrious man Cnaeus Pompeius in many most important affairs, and, by universal
consent, a most accomplished person; and by Posides Matro of Solentum, a man of the
highest rank, of the greatest reputation and virtue. And as many as you please will
tell you the same thing at this present trial, both men who have heard it from his
own mouth,—some of the leading men of our order,—and others too who were present
when the accusation was taken against Sthenius in his absence. Moreover at
Rome, when the matter was discussed in
the senate, all his friends, and among them his own father, defended him on the
ground of its being lawful so to act;—of its having been done constantly;—of his
having done what he had done according to the example and established precedent of
others.
Besides, all Sicily gives evidence of the
fact which in the common petitions of all the states has prescribed this request to
the consuls, “to beg and entreat of the conscript fathers, not to allow charges to
be received against the absent.” Concerning which matter you heard Cnaeus Lentulus,
the advocate of Sicily, and a most
admirable young man, say, that the Sicilians, when they were instructing him in
their case, and pointing out to him what matters were to be urged in their behalf
before the senate, complained much of this misfortune of Sthenius, and on account of
this injustice which had been done to Sthenius, resolved to make this demand which I
have mentioned.
And as this is the ease, were you endued with such insanity and audacity, as, in a
matter so clear, so thoroughly proved,—made so notorious even by you yourself, to
dare to corrupt the public records? But how did you corrupt them? Did you not do it
in such a way that, even if we all kept silence, still your own handwriting would be
sufficient to condemn you? Give me, it you please, the document. Take it round to
the judges; show it to them. Do you not see that the whole of this entry, where he
states that the charge was made against Sthenius in his presence, is a correction?
What was written there before? What blunder did he correct when he made that
erasure? Why, O judges, do you wait for proofs of this charge from us? We say
nothing; the books are before you, which cry out themselves that they have been
tampered with and amended.
Do you think you can possibly escape out of this business, when we are following
you up, not by any uncertain opinion, but by your own traces, which you have left
deeply printed and fresh in the public documents? Has he decided, (I should like to
know,) without hearing the cause, that Sthenius has tampered with the public
documents, who cannot possibly defend himself from the charge of having tampered
with the public documents in the case of that very Sthenius?
See now another instance of madness; see how, in trying to acquit himself; he
entangles himself still more. He assigns an advocate to Sthenius.—Whom? Any relation
or intimate friend? No.—Any citizen, any honourable and noble man of Florence? Not even that.—At least it was some
Sicilian, in whom there was some credit and dignity? Far from it.—Whom then did he
assign to him? A Roman citizen. Who can approve of this? When Sthenius was the man
of the highest rank in his city, a man of most extensive connections, with
numberless friends; when, besides, he was of the greatest influence all over
Sicily, by his own personal character and
popularity; could he find no Sicilian who was willing to be appointed his advocate?
Will you approve of this? Did he himself prefer a Roman citizen? Tell me what
Sicilian, when he was defendant in any action, ever had a Roman citizen assigned to
him as his advocate? Produce the records of all the praetors who preceded Verres;
open them. If you find one such instance, I will then admit to you that this was
done as you have entered it in your public documents.