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:

“The four sesterces which the senate has voted me, and has paid me out of the treasury, those I shall keep, and shall transfer out of the public chest into my strong box.” What comes next? What? “For each modius which I require of you, do you give me eight sesterces.” On what account? “What do you ask me on what account for? It is not so much on what account that we need think, as of how advantageous it will be,—how great a booty I shall get.” Speak, speak, says the cultivator, a little plainer. The senate desires that you should pay me money,—that I should deliver corn to you. Will you retain that money which the senate intended should be paid to me, and take two sesterces a-modius from me, to whom you ought to pay a denarius for each modius? And then will you call this plunder and robbery granary-money?

This one injury,—this single distress, was wanting to the cultivators under your praetorship, to complete the ruin of the remainder of their fortunes. For what remaining injury could be done to the man who, owing to this injury, was forced not only to dose all his corn, but even to sell all his tools and stock? He had no way to turn. From what produce could he find the money to pay you? Under the name of tenths, as much had been taken from him as the caprice of Apronius chose; for the second tenths and for the corn that had been purchased either nothing had been paid, or only so much as the clerk had left behind, or perhaps it was even taken for nothing, as you have had proved to you. Is money also to be extorted from the cultivators? How? By what right? by what precedent? For when the crops of the cultivator were carried off and plundered with every kind of injustice, the cultivator appeared to lose what he had himself raised with his plough, for which he had toiled, what his land and his cornfields had produced.

But amid this terrible ill-treatment, there was still this wretched consolation,—that he seemed only to be losing what, under another praetor, he could get again out of the same land. But now it is necessary for the cultivator—to give money, which he does not get out of the land—to sell his oxen, and his plough itself, and all his tools For you are not to think this. “The man has also possessions in ready money; he has also possessions inland, near the city.” For when a burden is imposed on a cultivator of the soil, it is not the mean and ability of the man that is to be considered, whether he has any property besides; but the quality and description of his land, what that can endure, what that can suffer, what that can and ought to produce. Although those men have been drained and ruined by Verres in every possible manner, still you ought to decide what contribution you consider the cultivator ought to render to the republic on account of his land, and what charges he can support. You impose the payment of tenths on them. They endure that. A second tenth. You think they must be subservient to your necessities,—that they must, besides that, supply you with more if you choose to purchase it They will so supply you if you choose.

How severe all this is, and how little, after all these deductions are made, can be left of clear profit for the owners, I think you, from your own farming experience, can guess. Add, now, to all this, the edicts, the regulations, the injuries of Verres,—add the reign and the rapine of Apronius, and the slaves of Apronius, in the land subject to the payment of tenths. Although I pass over all this; I am speaking of the granary. Is it your intention that the Sicilians should give corn to our magistrates for their granaries for nothing? What can be more scandalous, what can be more iniquitous than that? And yet, know you that this would have seemed to the cultivators a thing to be wished for, to be begged for, while that man was praetor. Sositenus is a citizen of Entella; a man of the greatest prudence, and of the noblest birth in his city. You have heard what he said when he was sent by the public authority to this trial as a deputy, together with Artemon and Meniscus, men of the highest character. He, when in the senate at Entella he was discussing with me the injustice of Verres, said this: that, if the question of the granaries and of the valuation were conceded, the Sicilians were willing to promise the senate corn for the granary without payment, so that we need not for the future vote such large sums to our magistrates.

I am sure that you clearly perceive how advantageous this would be for the Sicilians not because of the justice of such a condition, but in the way of choosing the least of two evils; for the man who had given Verres a thousand modii for the granary as his share of the contribution required, would have given two, or, at most, three thousand sesterces, but the same man has now been compelled for the same quantity of corn to give eight thousand sesterces. A cultivator could not stand this for three years, at least not out of his own produce. He must inevitably have sold his stock. But if the land can endure this contribution and this tribute,—that is to say, if Sicily can bear and support it, let it pay it to the Roman people rather than to our magistrates. It is a great sum, a great and splendid revenue. If you can obtain it without damage to the province, without injury to our allies, I do not object at all. Let as much be given to the magistrates for their granary as has always been given. What Verres demands besides, that, if they cannot provide it, let them refuse. If they can provide it, let it be the revenue of the Roman people rather than the plunder of the praetor.

In the next place, why is that valuation established for only one description of corn? If it is just and endurable, then Sicily owes the Roman people tenths; let it give three denarii for each single modius of wheat; let it keep the corn itself. Money has been paid to you, O Verres,—one sum with which you were to buy corn for the granary, the other with which you were to buy corn from the cities to send to Rome. You keep at your own house the money which has been given to you; and besides that, you receive a vast sum in your own name. Do the same with respect to that corn which belongs to the Roman people; exact money from the cities according to the same valuation, and give back what you have received,—then the treasury of the Roman people will be better filled than it ever has been.

But Sicily could not endure that in the case of the public corn; she did indeed bear it in the case of my own. Just as if that valuation was more just when your advantage was concerned, than when that of the Roman people was; or, as if the conduct which I speak of and that which you adopted, differed only in the description of the injury, and not in the magnitude of the sum involved. But that granary they can by no means bear, not even if everything else be remitted; not even if they were for ever hereafter delivered from all the injuries and distresses which they have suffered while you were praetor, still they say that they could not by any possibility support that granary and that valuation.