But, O judges, since it is not possible for me to detail to you the sum total and
the whole number of his acts of injustice,—since it would be an endless task to
speak separately of the injuries done to each individual,—I beg you, listen to the
different kinds of injustice. There is a man of Centuripa, named Nympho, a clever and industrious
man, a most experienced and diligent cultivator. He, though he rented very large
allotments, (as other rich men like him have been in the habit of doing in
Sicily,) and though he cultivated them at
great expense, keeping a great deal of stock, was treated by that man with such
excessive injustice, that he not only abandoned his allotments, but even fled from
Sicily, and came to Rome with many others who had been driven away by
that man. He then contrived that the collector should assert that Nympho had not
made a proper return of his number of acres, according to that notable edict, which
had no other object except making profit of this sort.
As Nympho wished to defend himself in a regular action, he appoints some excellent
judges, that same physician Cornelius, (his real name is Artemidorus, a citizen of
Perga, under which name he had formerly in his own country acted as guide to Verres,
and as prompter in his exploit of plundering the temple of Diana,) and Volusius the
soothsayer, and Valerius the crier. Nympho was condemned before he had fairly got
into court. In what penalty? perhaps you will ask, for there was no fixed sum
mentioned in the edict In the penalty of all the corn which was on his
threshing-floors. So Apronius the collector takes, by a penalty for violating an
edict, and not by any rights connected with his farming the revenue—not the tenth
that was due, not corn that had been removed and concealed, but seven thousand
medimni of wheat—from the allotments of Nympho.
A farm belonging to the wife of Xeno
Menenius, a most noble man, had been let to a settler. The settler, because he could
not bear the oppressive conduct of the collectors, had fled from his land. Verres
gave his favourite sentence of condemnation against
Xeno for not having made a return of his
acres. Xenosaid that it was no business of
his; that the farm was let. Verres ordered a trial to take place according to this
formula,—“If it should appear” that there were more acres in the farm than the
settler had returned, then Xeno was to be
condemned. He said not only that he had not been the cultivator of the land, which
was quite sufficient, but also that he was neither the owner of that farm, nor the
lessor of it; that it belonged to his wife; that she herself transacted her own
affairs; that she had let the land. A man of the very highest reputation, and of the
greatest authority, defended Xeno, Marcus
Cossetius. Nevertheless Verres ordered a trial, in which the penalty was fixed at
eighty thousand sesterces.
Xeno, although he saw that judges were
provided for him out of that band of robbers, still said that he would stand the
trial. Then that fellow, with a loud voice, so that Xeno might hear it, orders his
slaves of Venus to take care the man does not escape while the trial is proceeding,
and as soon as it is over to bring him before him. And at the same time he said
also, that he did not think that, if from his riches he disregarded the penalty of a
conviction, he would also disregard the scourge. He, under the compulsion of this
violence and this fear, paid the collectors all that Verres commanded.
There is a citizen of Morgentia, named Polemarchus, a virtuous and honourable man.
He, when seven hundred medimni were demanded as the
tenths due on fifty acres, because he refused to pay them, was summoned before the
praetor at his own house; and, as he was still in bed, he was introduced into his
bed-chamber, into which no one else was admitted, except his woman and the
collector. There he was beaten and kicked about till, though he had refused before
to pay seven hundred medimni, he now promised a
thousand. Eubulides Grosphus is a man of Centuripa, a man above all others of his
city, both for virtue and high birth, and also for wealth. They left this man, O
judges, the most honourable man of a most honourable city, not merely only so much
corn, but only so much life as pleased Apronius. For by force, by violence, and by
blows, he was induced to give corn, not as much as he had, but as much as was
demanded of him, which was even more.
Sostratus, and Numenius, and Nymphodorus, of the same city, three brothers of
kindred sentiments, when they had fled from their lands because more corn was
demanded of them than their lands had produced, were treated thus,—Apronius
collected a band of men, came into their allotments, took away all their tools,
carried off their slaves, and drove off their live stock. Afterwards, when
Nymphodorus came to Aetna to him, and
begged to have his property restored to him, he ordered the man to be seized and
hung up on a wild olive, a tree which is the forum there; and an ally and friend of
the Roman people, a settler and cultivator of your domain, hung suspended from a
tree in a city of our allies, and in the very forum, for as long a period as
Apronius chose.
I have now been recounting to you, O judges, the species of
countless injuries which he has wrought,—one of each sort. An infinite host of evil
actions I pass over. Place before your own eyes, keep in your minds, these invasions
by collectors of the whole of Sicily, their
plunderings of the cultivators of the soil, the harshness of this man, the absolute
reign of Apronius. He despised the Sicilians; he did not consider them as men, he
thought that they would not be vigorous in avenging themselves, and that you would
treat their oppression lightly.