Let us now, in regular order, proceed to see in what way the city of Herbita, an
honourable and formerly a wealthy city, was harassed and plundered by him. A city of
what sort of men? Of excellent agriculturists, men most remote from courts of law,
from tribunals, and from disputes; whom you, O most profligate of men, ought to have
spared, whose interests you ought to have consulted, the whole race of whom you
ought most carefully to have preserved. In the first year of your praetorship the
tenths of that district were sold for eighteen thousand Orellius considers that all the figures and measures in this and the next chapter
are in a state of hopeless corruption and confusion; and they are certainly not
very easily reconciled with each other. The effect of the oration in general is
not weakened, but we must not suppose that we have the exact statements which were
addressed by Cicero to the Judges.
medimni of wheat. When Atidius, who was also his
servant in the matter of tenths, had purchased them, and when he had come to Herbita
with the title of' prefect, attended by the slaves of Verres, and when a place where
he might lodge had been assigned him by the public act of the city, the people of
Herbita are compelled to give him as a profit thirty-seven thousand modii of wheat, when the tenths of the wheat had been sold
at eighteen thousand. And they are compelled to give this vast quantity of wheat in
the name of their city, since the private cultivators of the soil had already fled
from their lands, having been plundered and driven away by the injuries of the
collectors.
In the second year, when Apronius had bought the tenths of wheat for twenty-five
thousand modii, and when he himself had come to
Herbita with his whole force and his whole band of robbers, the people was compelled
to give him in the name of the city a present of twenty-six thousand modii of wheat, and a further gift of two thousand
sesterces. I am not quite sure about this further
gift, whether it was not given to Apronius himself as wages for his trouble, and a
reward for his impudence. But concerning such an immense quantity of wheat, who can
doubt that it came to that robber of corn, Verres, just as the corn of Agyrium did? But in the third year he adopted in
this district the custom of sovereigns. They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians and Syrians are
accustomed to have several wives, and to give to these wives cities in this
fashion:—that this city is to dress the woman's waist, that one to dress her neck,
that to dress her hair; and so they have whole nations not only privy to their
lusts, but also assistants in it.
Learn that the licentiousness and lust of that man who thought himself king of the
Sicilians, was much the same. The name of the wife of Aeschrio, a Syracusan, is
Pippa, whose name has been made notorious over all Sicily by that man's profligacy, and many verses were inscribed on
the praetor's tribunal, and over the praetor's head, about that woman. This
Aeschrio, the imaginary husband of Pippa, is appointed as a new farmer of the tenths
of Herbita. When the men of Herbita saw that if the business got into Aeschrio's
hands they should be plundered at the will of a most dissolute woman, they did
against him as far as they thought that they could go. Aeschrio bid on, for he was
not afraid that, while Verres was praetor, the woman, who would be really the
farmer, would ever be allowed to lose by it. The tenths are knocked down to him at
thirty-five thousand medimni, nearly half as much
again as they had fetched the preceding year. The cultivators were utterly
destroyed, and so much the more because in the preceding year they had been drained
dry, and almost ruined. He was aware that they had been sold at so high a price,
that more could not be squeezed out of the people; so he deducts from the sum total
three thousand six hundred medimni, and enters on
the registers thirty-one thousand four hundred.
Docimus had bought the tenths of barley belonging to the same district. This
Docimus is the man who had brought to Verres Tertia, the daughter of Isidorus the
actor, having taken her from a Rhodian flute-player. The influence of this woman
Tertia was greater with him than that of Pippa, or of all the other women, and I had
almost said, was as great in his Sicilian praetorship as that of Chelidon had been
in his city praetorship. There come to Herbita the two rivals of the praetor, not
likely to be troublesome to him, infamous agents of most abandoned women. They begin
to demand, to beg, to threaten; but though they wished it, they were not able to
imitate Apronius. The Sicilians were not so much afraid of Sicilians; still, as they
put forth false accusations in every possible way, the Herbitenses undertake to
appear in court at Syracuse. When they
had arrived there, they are compelled to give to Aeschrio—that is, to Pippa—as much
as had been deducted from the original purchase-money, three thousand six hundred
modii of wheat. He was not willing to give to the
woman who was really the farmer too much profits out of the tenths, lest in that
case she should transfer her attention from her nocturnal gains to the farming of
the tributes.
The people of Herbita thought the matter was settled, when that man added,—“And
what are you going to give out of the barley to my little friend Docimus? What are
your intentions?” He transacted all this business, O judges, in his chamber, and in
his bed. They said that they had no commission to give anything: “I do not hear you;
pay him fifteen thousand sesterces.” What were the
wretched men to do I or how could they refuse? especially when they saw the traces
of the woman who was the collector fresh in the bed, by which they understood that
he had been inflamed to persevere in his demand. And so one city of our allies and
friends was made tributary of two most debauched women while Verres was praetor. And
I now assert that that quantity of corn and those sums of money were given by the
people of Herbita to the collectors in the name of the city. And yet by all that
corn and all that money they could not deliver their fellow citizens from the
injuries of the collectors. For after the property of the cultivators was destroyed
and carried off, bribes were still to be given to the collectors to induce them to
depart at length from their lands and from their cities.
And so when Philinus of Herbita, a man eloquent and prudent, and noble in his own
city, spoke in public of the distress of the cultivators, and of their flight, and
of the scanty numbers that were left behind, you remarked, O judges, the groans of
the Roman people, a great crowd of whom has always been present at this cause. And
concerning the scanty number of the cultivators I will speak at another time.
But at this moment a
topic, which I had almost passed over, must not be altogether forgotten. For, in the
name of the immortal gods! how will you, I will not say tolerate, but how will you
bear even to hear of the sums which Verres subtracted from the sum total?
Up to this time there has been one man only since the first foundation of
Rome, (and may the immortal gods grant
that there may never be another,) to whom the republic wholly committed herself,
being compelled by the necessities of the times and domestic misfortunes. He had
such power, that without his consent no one could preserve either his property, or
his liberty, or his life. He had such courage in his audacity, that he was not
afraid to say in the public assembly, when he was selling the property of Roman
citizens, that he was selling his own booty. All his actions we not only still
maintain, but out of fear of greater inconveniences and calamities, we defend them
by the public authority. One decree alone of his has been remodeled by a resolution
of the senate, and a decree has been passed, that these men, from the sum total of
whose debts he had made a deduction, should pay the money into the treasury. The
senate laid down this principle,—that even he to whom they had entrusted everything
had not power to diminish the total amount of revenue acquired and procured by the
valour of the Roman people.
The conscript fathers decided that he had no power to remit even to the bravest
men any portion of their debts to the state. And shall the senators decide that you
have lawfully remitted any to a most profligate woman? The man, concerning whom the
Roman people had established a law that his absolute will should be the law to the
Roman people, still is found fault with in this one particular, out of reverence for
their ancient laws. Did you, who were liable to almost every law, think that your
lust and caprice was to be a law to you? He is blamed for remitting a part of that
money which he himself had acquired. Shall you be pardoned who have remitted part of
the revenue due to the Roman people?