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.
Does any one require the evidence of Lucius Metellus against Verres? No one. Does
any one demand it? I think not What, however, if I prove by the evidence and letters
of Lucius Metellus that all these things are true? What will you say then? That
Metellus writes falsely? or that he is desirous of injuring his friend? or that he,
though he is praetor, does not know in what state the province is? Read the letters
of Lucius Metellus, which he sent to Cnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, the
consuls, those which he sent to Marcus Mummius, the praetor, those which he sent to
the quaestors of the city. [The letter of Lucius Metellus is read.] “I sold the
tenths according to the law of Hiero.” When he writes that he had sold them
according to the law of Hiero, what is he writing? Why, that he had sold them as all
others had done, except Verres. When he writes that he had sold them according to
the law of Hiero, what is he writing? Why, that he had restored the privileges
granted to the Sicilians by the kindness of our ancestors and taken away by Verres,
and their rights, and the terms on which they became our allies and friends. He
mentions at what price he sold the tenths of each district. After that what does he
write?
Read the rest of the letter.—“The greatest pains has been taken by me to sell the
tenths for as good a price as possible.” Why then, O Metellus, did you not sell them
for as much as Verres? “Because I found the allotments deserted, the fields empty,
the province in a wretched and ruined condition.” What? And as for the land that was
sown, how was any one found to sow it? Read the letters. [The letters are read.] He
says that he had sent letters, and that, when he arrived, he had given a positive
promise; he had interposed his authority to prevail on them, and had all but given
hostages to the cultivators that he would be in no respect like Verres But what is
this about which he says that he took so much pains? Read—“To prevail on the
cultivators of the soil, who were left, to sow as largely as they could.” Who were
left? What does this mean—left? After what war? after what devastation? What mighty
slaughter was there in Sicily, or what was
there of such duration and such disaster while you were praetor, that your successor
had to collect and recover the cultivators who were left?