This request was with difficulty obtained from Apronius, as a most excessive
kindness to those men who were even then safe. And when this was obtained, this is
what was obtained, forsooth, that they might be allowed to pay three tenths instead
of one. But if your own interest had not been at stake in the matter, O Verres, they
would rather have entreated you not to be made to pay more than one tenth, than have
begged of a promise not to be made to pay more than three. Now, that at the present
time I may pass over those rules which Apronius, in a kingly, or rather in a
tyrannical spirit, made with respect to the cultivators, and that I may not at
present call those men from whom he took all their corn, and to whom he left nothing
not only of their corn, but nothing even of their property; just see how much gain
is made of these three medimni, which he considered
as a great favour and indulgence.
The return of acres in the district of Leontini is thirty thousand. This amounts
to ninety thousand medimni of wheat that is to say,
to five hundred and forty thousand modii of wheat.
Deduct two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of
wheat, being what the tenths were sold for, and there remain three hundred and
twenty-four thousand modii of wheat; add to the sum
total of five hundred and forty thousand modii
three fiftieths, that is to say, thirty-two thousand four hundred modii of wheat, (for three fiftieths besides were exacted
from every one;) this now amounts to three hundred and fifty-six thousand four
hundred modii of wheat. But I said that four
hundred thousand sesterces of profit had been made.
For I do not include in this calculation those who were not allowed to compound at
three medimni an acre. But that by this present
calculation I may make out the sum which I promised to do, many were compelled
besides to pay two sesterces, and many even five,
with each medimnus, and those who had to pay least
paid a sesterce with every medimnus. To take the
least of these sums, as we calculated there were ninety thousand medimni, we must add to that, according to this new and
infamous example here given, ninety thousand sesterces.
Will he now dare to tell me, that he sold the tenths at a high price, when he took
for himself more than twice as much as he sent to the Roman people out of the same
district? You sold the tenths of the Leontine district for two hundred and sixteen
thousand modii of wheat? If you did so according to
law, it was a fine price; if your caprice was the law, it was a low price; if you
sold them so that those were called tenths which were in reality a half, you sold
them at a very low price. For the yearly produce of all Sicily might be sold for much more, if that was what the senate or
people of Rome had desired you to do.
Indeed, the tenths were often sold for as much, when they were sold according to the
law of Hiero, as they have been sold for now under the law of Verres. Let me have
the accounts of the sale of tenths under Caius Norbanus. [The account of the sale of
the tenths in the Leontine district under Caius Norbanus is read.] And yet, then, there were no trials about the return of acres; nor
was Artemidorus Cornelius a judge, nor did a Sicilian magistrate exact from a
cultivator whatever the farmer demanded; nor was it entreated as a favour from the
farmer to be allowed to compound at three medimni
an acre; nor was a cultivator obliged to give an additional present of money, nor to
add three-fiftieths of corn. And yet a area, quantity of corn was sent to the Roman
people.
But what is the meaning of these fiftieths? what is the meaning of these
additional presents of money? By what right, and, what is more, in what manner did
you do this The cultivator gave the money. How or whence did he get it? If he had
wished to be very liberal, he would have used a more heaped up measure, as men
formerly used to do in the matter of the tenths, when they were sold by fair laws,
and on fair terms. He gave the money. Where did he get it? from his corn? As if,
while you were praetor, he had anything to sell. Something, then, must be taken from
his principal, in order to add this pecuniary gratuity for Apronius to all the
profit which he derived from the lands. The next thing is, Did they give it
willingly or unwillingly? Willingly? They were very fond, I suppose, of Apronius.
Unwillingly? How, then, were they compelled to do so, except by violence and
ill-treatment? Again; that man, that most senseless man, in the selling of the
tenths, caused additional sums to be added to every tenth. It was not much; he added
two or three thousand sesterces. In the three years
he made about five hundred thousand sesterces. He
did this neither according to any precedent, nor by any right; nor did he make any
return of that money; nor can any man ever imagine how he is going to defend himself
against this petty charge.
And, as this is the case, do you dare to say that you sold
the tenths at a high price, when it is evident that you sold the property and
fortunes of the cultivators, not for the cake of the Roman people, but with a view
to your own gain. As if any steward, from a farm which had been used to produce ten
thousand sesterces, having cut down and sold the
trees, having taken away the buildings and the stock, and having driven off all the
cattle, sent his master twenty thousand sesterces
instead of ten, and made a hundred thousand more for himself. At first the master,
not knowing the injury that had been done to him, would be glad, and be delighted
with his steward, because he had got so much more profit out of the farm; but
afterwards, when he heard that all those things on which the profit and cultivation
of his farm depends have been removed and sold, he would punish his steward with the
greatest severity, and think himself very ill used. So also, the Roman people, when
it hears that Caius Verres has sold the tenths for more than that most innocent man,
Caius Sacerdos, whom he succeeded, thinks that it has got a good steward and
guardian over its lands and crops; but when it finds out that he has sold all the
stock of the cultivators, all the resources of the revenue, and has destroyed all
the hopes of their posterity by his avarice,—that he has devastated and drained the
allotments and the Lands subject to tribute,—that he has made himself most enormous
gain and booty,—it will perceive that it has been shamefully treated, and will think
that man worthy of the severest punishment.
By what, then, can this be made evident? Chiefly by this fact, that the land of
the province of Sicily liable to the
payment of tenths is deserted through the avarice of that man. Nor does it happen
only that those who have remained on their lands are now cultivating a smaller
number of acres, but also very many rich men, farmers on a large scale, and skillful
men, have deserted large and productive farms, and abandoned their whole allotments.
That may be very easily ascertained from the public documents of the states; because
according to the law of Hiero the number of cultivators is every year entered in the
books by public authority before the magistrates. Read now how many cultivators of
the Leontine district there were when Verres took the government. Eighty-three. And
how many made returns in his third year? Thirty-two. I see that there were fifty-one
cultivators so entirely got rid of that they had no successors. How many cultivators
were there of the district of Mutyca, when you arrived? Let us see from the public
documents. A hundred and eighty-eight. How many in your third year? A hundred and
one. That one district has to regret eighty-seven cultivators, owing to that man's
ill-treatment, and to that extent our republic has to regret the loss of so many
heads of families, and demands them back at his hand, since they are the real
revenues of the Roman people. The district of Herbita had in his first year two
hundred and fifty-seven cultivators; in his third, a hundred and twenty. From this
region a hundred and thirty-seven heads of families have fled like banished men. The
district of Agyrium—what men lived in that land! how honourable, how wealthy they
were? —had two hundred and fifty cultivators in the first year of your praetorship.
What had it in the third year? Eighty,—as you have heard the Agyrian deputies read
from their public documents.
O ye immortal gods! If you had driven away out of the whole of Sicily a hundred and seventy cultivators of the
soil, could you, with impartial judges, escape condemnation? When the one district
of Agyrium is less populous by a hundred
and seventy cultivators, will not you, O judges, form your conjectures of the state
of the whole province? And you will find nearly the same state of things in every
district liable to the payment of tenths, and that those to whom anything has been
left out of a large patrimony, have remained behind with a much smaller stock, and
cultivating a much smaller number of acres, because they were afraid, if they
departed, that they should lose all the rest of their fortunes; but as for those to
whom he had left nothing remaining which they could lose, they have fled not only
from their farms, but from their cities. The very men who have remained—scarcely a
tenth part of the old cultivators of the soil—were about to leave all their lands
too, if Metellus had not sent letters to them from Rome, saying that he would sell the tenths according to the law of
Hiero; and if he had not entreated them to sow as much land as they could, which
they had always done for their own sakes, when no one entreated them, as long as
they understood that they were sowing, and labouring, and going to expense for
themselves and for the Roman people,—not for Verres and Apronius.
But now, O judges, if you neglect the fortunes of the Sicilians,—if you show no
anxiety about the treatment the allies of the Roman people receive from our
magistrates,—at all events undertake and defend the common cause of the Roman
people. I say that the cultivators have been driven out,—that the lands subject to
tribute have been devastated and drained by Verres—that the whole province has been
depopulated and tyrannised over. All these things I prove by the public documents of
the cities, and by the private evidence of most unimpeachable men. What would you have more? Do you wait
till Lucius Metellus, who by his commands and by his power has deterred many
witnesses from appearing against Verres shall himself, though absent, bear testimony
to his wickedness, and dishonesty, and audacity? I think not. But he, who was his
successor, has had the best opportunity of knowing the truth. That is true, but he
is hindered by his friendship for him. Still, he ought to inform us accurately in
what state the province is. He ought, still he is not forced to do so.