But my speech has now digressed more than I had intended from the letter of Timarchides: and I said, that when that had been read, I would end all I had to say on the charge connected with the tenths; from which you have clearly seen that an incalculable amount of corn has been for these three years diverted from the republic, and taken illegally from the cultivators. The next thing is, O judges, for me to explain to you the charge about the purchase of corn, a theft very large in amount, and exceedingly shameless. And I entreat you to listen while I briefly lay before you my statements, being both certain, few in number, and important. It was Verres's duty according to a decree of the senate, and according to the law of Terentius and to the law of Cassius about corn, to purchase corn in Sicily. There were two descriptions of purchase,—the one the purchase of the second tenths, the other the purchase of what was furnished in fair proportions by the different cities. Of corn derived from the second tenths the quantity would be as much as had been derived from the first tenths; of corn levied on the cities in this way there would be eight hundred thousand modii. The price fixed for the corn collected as the second tenths was three sesterces a modius; for that furnished in compliance with the levy, four sesterces. Accordingly, for the corn furnished in compliance with the levy, there was paid to Verres each year three million two hundred thousand sesterces, which he was to pay to the cultivators of the soil; and for the second tenths, about nine millions of sesterces. And so, during the three years, there was nearly thirty-six million six hundred thousand sesterces paid to him for this purchase of corn in Sicily.

This enormous sum of money, given to you out of a poor and exhausted treasury; given to you for corn,—that is to say, for what was necessary for the safety and life of the citizens; given to you to be paid to the Sicilian cultivators of the soil, on whom the republic was imposing such great burdens;—this great sum, I say, was so handled by you, that I can prove, if I choose, that you appropriated the whole of this money, and that it all went to your own house. In fact, you managed the whole affair in such a way that this which I say can be proved to the most impartial judge. But I will have a regard for my own authority, I will recollect with what feelings, with what intentions I have undertaken the advocacy of this public cause. I will not deal with you in the spirit of an accuser; I will invent nothing; I do not wish any one to take for proved, while I am speaking, anything of which I myself do not already feel thoroughly convinced.

In the ease of this public money, O judges, there are three kinds of thefts. In the first place, he put it out among the companies from which it had been drawn at twenty-four per cent interest; Towards the close of the republic the interest of money became due on the first of every month; therefore centesimae usurae, which seems to have been reckoned the ordinary rate of interest at Rome, was a payment of the hundredth part of the debt every month, or twelve hundredths, or, as we say, twelve per cent every year; binae centesimae were twice as much. Niebuhr is of opinion that the monthly rate of the centesimae was of foreign origin, and first adopted at Rome in the time of Sulla. The old yearly rate established by the Twelve Tables was unciarium foenus, a little over eight per-cent a year. See Smith, Dict Ant. p. 525, v. Interest. in the second place, he paid actually nothing at all for corn to very many of the cities; lastly, if he did pay any city, he deducted as large a sum as ever he chose. He paid no one whatever as much as was due to him. And first I ask you this—you, to whom the farmers of the revenue, according to the letters of Carpinatius, gave thanks. Was the public money, drawn from the treasury, given out of the revenues of the Roman people to purchase corn, was it a source of profit to you? Did it bring you in twenty-four per cent interest? I dare say you will deny it. For it is a disgraceful and dangerous confession to make.

And it is a thing very difficult for me to prove, for by what witnesses am I to prove it? By the farmers of the revenue? They have been treated by him with great honour they will keep silence. By their letters? They have been put out of the way by a resolution of the collectors. Which way then shall I turn? Shall I leave unmentioned so infamous a business, a crime of such audacity and such shamelessness, on account of a dearth of witnesses or of documentary proofs? I will not do so, O judges, I will call a witness. Whom? Lucius Vettius Chilo, a most honourable and accomplished man of the equestrian order, who is such a friend of and so closely connected with Verres, that, even if he were not an excellent man, still whatever he said against him would seem to have great weight; but who is so good a man that, even if he were ever so great an enemy to him, yet his testimony ought to be believed.

He is annoyed and waiting to see what Vettius will say. He will say nothing because of this present occasion; nothing of his free will, nothing of which we can think that he might have spoken either way. He sent letters into Sicily to Carpinatius, when he was superintendent of the tax derived from the pasture lands, and manager of that company of farmers, which letters I found at Syracuse, in Carpinatius's house, among the portfolios of letters which had been brought to him; and at Rome in the house of Lucius Tullius, an intimate friend of yours, and another manager of the company, in portfolios of letters which had been received by him. And from these letters observe, I pray you, the impudence of this man's usury. [The letters of Lucius Vettius to Publius Servilius, and to Caius Antistius, managers of the company, are read.] Vettius says that he will be with you, and will take notice how you make up your accounts for the treasury; so that, if you do not restore to the people this money which has been put out at interest, you shall restore it to the company.

Can we not establish what we assert by this witness, can we not establish it by the letters of Publius Servilius and Caius Antistius, managers of the company, men of the highest reputation and of the highest honour, and by the authority of the company whose letters we are using? or must we seek for something on which we can rely more, for something more important? Vettius, your most intimate friend,—Vettius, your connection, to whose sister you are married,—Vettius, the brother of your wife, the brother of your quaestor, bears witness to your most infamous theft, to your most evident embezzlement; for by what other name is a lending of the public money at usury to be called? Read what follows. He says that your clerk, O Verres, was the drawer up of the bond for this usury: the managers threaten him also in their letters; in fact, it happened by chance that two managers were with Vettius. They think it intolerable that twenty-four per cent should be taken from them, and they are right to think so. For whoever did such a thing before? who ever attempted to do such a thing,—who ever thought that such a thing could be done, as for a magistrate to venture to take money as interest from the farmers, though the senate had often assisted the farmers by remitting the interests due from them? Certainly that man could have no hope of safety, if the farmers—that is, the Roman knights, were the judges.

He ought to have less hope now, O judges, now that you have to decide; and so much the less, in proportion as it is more honourable to be roused by the injuries of others than by one's own. What reply do you think of making to all this? Will you deny that you did it? Will you defend yourself on the ground that it was lawful for you to do it? How can you deny it? Can you deny it, to be convicted by the authority of such important letters, by so many farmers appearing as witnesses? But how can you say it was lawful? In truth, if I were to prove that you, in your own province, had lent on usury your own money, and not the money of the Roman people, still you could not escape; but when I prove that you lent the public money, the money decreed to you to buy corn with, and that you received interest from the farmers, will you make any one believe that this was lawful? a deed than which not only others have never, but you yourself have never done a more audacious or more infamous one. I cannot, in truth, O judges, say that even that which appears to me to be perfectly unprecedented, and about which I am going to speak next—I mean, the fact of his having actually paid very many cities nothing at all for their corn—was either more audacious or more impudent; the booty derived from this act was perhaps greater, but the impudence of the other was certainly not less.

And since I have said enough about this lending at interest, now, I pray you, give your attention to the question of the embezzlement of the whole sum in many instances. There are many cities in Sicily, O judges, of great splendour and of high reputation, and among the very first of these is the city of Halesa. You will find no city more faithful to its duties, more rich in wealth, more influential in its authority. After that man had ordered it to furnish every year sixty thousand modii of wheat, he took money for the wheat, at the price which wheat bore in Sicily at the time; all the money which he thus received from the public treasury, he kept for himself. I was amazed, O judges, when a man of the greatest ability, of the highest wisdom, and of the greatest influence, Aeneas of Halesa, first stated this to me at Halesa in the senate of Halesa; a man to whom the senate by public resolution had given a charge to return me and my brother thanks, and at the same time to explain to us the matters which concerned this trial.