How abundantly Apronius is praised by Timarchides! How splendidly! Whom ought I to expect to be otherwise than pleased with that man who is so highly approved by Timarchides? “You have ample funds.” It is quite inevitable that what there was superfluous of the gain you both made by the corn, must have gone chiefly to the man by whose intervention you transacted that business. “Get hold of the new clerks and officers. The Latin is apparitor, which was “the general name for the public servants of the magistrates at Rome,—accensi, carnifex, lictores, scribae, &c. &c. They were called apparitores because they were at hand to execute the commands of the magistrates. Their service or attendance was called apparitio.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. in voce. —Use every means that offer, in concert with Lucius Vulteius, who has the greatest influence.” See now, what an opinion Timarchides has of his own dishonest cunning, when he gives precepts of dishonesty to Apronius! Now these words, “Use every means in your power ” The Latin is caede, concide. “N.B. caede concide, Cic. proverbially; i.e. use every means in your power "—Riddle's Lat. Dict. in Concido. —Does not he seem to be drawing words out of his master's house, suited to every sort of iniquity? “I beg, my brother, that you will trust your own little brother,” your comrade, indeed, in gain and robbery, your twin-brother and image in worthlessness, dishonesty, and audacity. “You will be considered dear to the retinue.” What does this mean, “to the retinue?” What has that to do with it? Are you teaching Apronius? What? had he come into this retinue at your prompting, or of his own accord? “Whatever is needful for each man, that employ.” How great, do you suppose, must have been the impudence of that man when in power, who even after his departure is so shameless? He says that everything can be done by money: you must give, waste, and spend, if you wish to gain your cause. Even this, that Timarchides should give this advice to Apronius, is not so offensive to me, as the fact of his also giving it to his patron: “When you press a request, all men gain their objects.”

Yes, while Verres was praetor, not while Sacerdos was, or Peducaeus, or this very Lucius Metellus. “You know that Metellus is a wise man.” But this is really intolerable, that the abilities of that most excellent man, Lucius Metellus, should be laughed at, and despised and scorned by that runaway slave Timarchides. “If you have Vulteius with you, everything will be mere child's play to you.” Here Timarchides is greatly mistaken, in thinking either that Vulteius can be corrupted by money, or that Metellus is going to discharge the duties of his praetorship according to the will of any one man; but he is mistaken by forming his conjectures from his own experience. Because he saw that, through his own intervention and that of others, many men had been able to do whatever they pleased with Verres, without meeting with any difficulty, he thought that there were the same means of access to every one. You did very easily whatever you wanted with Verres, and found it as easy as child's play to do so, because you knew many of the kinds of play in which he indulged. “Metellus and Vulteius have been impressed with the idea that you have ruined the cultivators of the soil.” Who attributed the action to Apronius, when he had ruined any cultivator? or to Timarchides when he had taken money for assigning a trial, or making a decree, or giving any order, or remitting any thing? or to Sextus the lictor, when he, as executioner, had put an innocent man to death? No one. Every body at the time attributed these things to Verres; whom they desire now to see condemned.

“People have dinned into their ears, that you were a partner of the praetor's.” Do you not see how clear the matter both is and was when even Timarchides is afraid of this? Will you not admit that we are not inventing this charge against you, but that your freedman has been this long time seeking some defence against this charge? Your freedman and officer, one most intimate, and indeed connected with you and your children in everything, writes to Apronius, that it is universally pointed out to Metellus that Apronius had been your partner in the tenths. “Make him see the dishonesty of the cultivators: they shall suffer for it, if the gods will.” What, in the name of the immortal gods, is the meaning of that? or on what account can we say that such great and bitter hatred is excited against the cultivators? What injury have the cultivators of the soil done to Verres, that even his freedman and officer should attack them with so inimical a disposition in these letters? And I would not, O judges, have read to you the letter of this runaway slave, if I had not wished you to see from it the precepts, and customs, and system of the whole household. Do you see how he advises Apronius? by what means and by what presents he may insinuate himself into the intimacy of Metellus? how he may corrupt Vulteius? how he may win over with bribes the clerks and the chief officer? He teaches him what he has himself seen done. He teaches a stranger the lessons which he has learnt at home himself. But in this one thing he makes a mistake, that he thinks there is the same road to every one's intimacy.

Although I am deservedly angry with Metellus, still I will say this which is true. Apronius could not corrupt Metellus with bribes, as he had corrupted Verres, nor with banquets, nor with women, nor with debauched and profligate conversation, by which means he had, I will not say crept into that man's friendship slowly and gradually, but had in a very short time got possession of the whole man and his whole retinue. But as for the retinue of Metellus, which he speaks of, what was the use of his corrupting that, when no judges were appointed out of it to judge the causes of the cultivators?

For as for what he writes, that the son of Metellus was a mere boy, he is greatly mistaken. For there is not the same access to the son of every praetor. O Timarchides, the son of Metellus is in the province, not a boy, but a virtuous and modest youth, worthy of his rank and name. How that boy of yours had behaved in the province, I would not say if I thought it the fault of the boy, and not the fault of his father. Did not you, though you knew yourself and your own habits of life, O Verres, take with you your son, still clad in the robes of a boy, into Sicily, so that even if nature had separated the boy from his father's vices and from every resemblance to his family, still habit and training might prevent his degenerating from them?

Suppose there had been in him the disposition of Caius Laelius, of Marcus Cato, still what good could be expected or extracted out of one who has lived in the licentious school of his father in such a way that he has never seen one modest or sober banquet? who since he has grown up has lived in daily revels for three years among immodest women and intemperate men? who has never heard a word from his father by which he might become more modest or more virtuous? who has never seen his father do anything, which, if he had imitated, would not have laid him under the most disgraceful imputation of all, that of being considered like his father?