I ask of you now, O Hortensius, with which of these classes you are going to compare the conduct of Verres? With those, I suppose, who, influenced by their own kindness, have granted, as a favour and as a convenience to the cities, permission to give money instead of corn. And so I suppose the cultivators begged of him, that, as they could not sell a modius of wheat for three sesterces, they may be allowed to pay three denarii instead of each modius. Or, since you do not dare to say this, will you take refuge in that assertion, that, being influenced by the difficulty of carriage, they preferred to give three denarii? Of what carriage? Wishing not to have to carry it from what place to what place? from Philomelium to Ephesus? I see what is the difference between the price of corn at different places; I see too how many days' journey it is; I see that it is for the advantage of the Philomelians rather to pay in Phrygia the price which corn bears in Ephesus, than to carry it to Ephesus, or to send both money and agents to Ephesus to buy corn.

But what can there be like that in Sicily? Enna is a completely inland town. Compel (that is the utmost stretch of your authority) the people of Enna to deliver their corn at the waterside; they will take it to Phintia, or to Halesa, or to Catina, places all very distant from one another, the same day that you issue the order; though there is not even need of any carriage at all; for all this profit of the valuation, O judges, arises from the variety in the price of corn. For a magistrate in a province can manage this,—namely, to receive it where it is dearest. And therefore that is the way valuations are managed in Asia and in Spain, and in those provinces in which corn is not everywhere the same price. But in Sicily what difference did it make to any one in what place he delivered it? for he had not to carry it; and wherever he was ordered to carry it, there he might buy the same quantity of corn which he sold at home.

Wherefore, if, O Hortensius, you wish to show that anything, in the matter of the valuation, was done by him like what has been done by others, you must show that at any place in Sicily, while Verres was praetor, a modius of wheat ever cost three denarii. See what a defence I have opened to you; how unjust to our allies, how far removed from the good of the republic, how utterly foreign to the intention and meaning of the law. Do you, when I am prepared to deliver you corn on my own farm, in my own city,—in the very place, in short, in which you are, in which you live, in which you manage all your business and conduct the affairs of the province,—do you, I say, select for me some remote and desert corner of the island? Do you bid me deliver it there, whither it is very inconvenient to carry it? where I cannot purchase it?

It is a shameful action, O judges, intolerable, permitted to no one by law, but perhaps not yet punished in any instance. Still this very thing, which I say ought not to be endured, I grant to you, O Verres; I make you a present of it. If in any place of that province corn was at the price at which he valued it, then I think that this charge ought not to have any weight against him. But when it was fetching two sesterces, or even three at the outside, in any district of the province which you choose to name, you exacted twelve. If there cannot be any dispute between you and me either about the price of corn, or about your valuation, why are you sitting there? What are you waiting for? What will you say in your defence? Does money appear to have been appropriated by you contrary to the laws, contrary to the interests of the republic, to the great injury of our allies? Or will you say in your defence, that all this has been done lawfully, regularly, in a manner advantageous to the republic, without injury to any one?

When the senate had given you money out of the treasury, and had paid you money which you were to pay the cultivators, a denarius for every modius, what was it your duty to do? If you had wished to do what Lucius Piso, surnamed Thrifty, who first made the law about extortion, would have done, when you had bought the corn at the regular price, you would have returned whatever money there was over. If you wished to act as men desirous of gaining popularity, or as kind-hearted men would, as the senate had valued the corn at more than the regular price, you would have paid for it according to the valuation of the senate, and not according to the market price. Or if, as many do, a conduct which produces some profit indeed, but still an honest and allowable one, you would not have bought corn, since it was cheaper than they expected, but you would have retained the money which the senate had granted you for furnishing the granary. But what is it that you have done? What presence has it, I will not say of justice, but even of any ordinary roguery or impudence? For, indeed, there is not usually anything which men, however dishonest, dare to do openly in their magistracy, for which they cannot give, if not a good excuse, still some excuse or other.

But what sort of conduct is this? The praetor came. Says he, I must buy some corn of you. Very well. At a denarius for a modius I am much obliged to you; you are very liberal, for I cannot get three sesterces for it. But I don't want the corn, I will take the money. I had hoped, says the cultivator, that I should have touched the denarii; but if you must have money, consider what is the price of corn now. I see it costs two sesterces. What money, then, can be required of me for you, when the senate has allowed you four sesterces? Listen, now, to what he demands And I entreat you, O judges, remark at the same time the equity of the praetor: