Read extracts from the public letters. [The public letters are read.] By what
decree of the senate was this permission given to the deputy? By none. Why did he do
so? He was compelled. Who says this? The whole city. Read the public testimony. [The
public testimony is read.] By the same evidence you see that there was extorted from
the same city in the second year a sum of money in a similar manner, and given to
Sextus Vennonius. But you compel the Amestratines, needy men, after you have sold
their tenths for eight hundred medimni to
Banobalis, a slave of Venus, (just notice the names of the farmers,) to add more
still as a compliment, than they had been sold for, though they had been sold at a
high price. They gave Banobalis eight hundred medimni of wheat, and fifteen hundred sesterces. Surely that man would never have been so senseless, as to
allow more corn to be given out of the domain of the Roman people to a slave of
Venus than to the Roman people itself, unless all that plunder had, under the name
of the slave, come in reality to himself.
The people of Petra, though their tenths
had been sold at a high price, were, very much against their will, compelled to give
thirty-seven thousand sesterces to Publius Naevius
Turpio, a most infamous man, who was convicted of assault while Sacerdos was
praetor. Did you sell the tenths so carelessly, that, when a medimnus cost fifteen sesterces, and
when the tenths were sold for three thousand medimni, that is, for forty-five thousand sesterces, still three thousand sesterces could be given to the farmer as a compliment? “Oh, but I sold
the tenths of that district at a high price” he boasts, forsooth, not that a
compliment was given to Turpio, but that money was taken from the Petrans.
What shall I say next? The Halicyans, the settlers among whom pay tenths,
themselves have their lauds free from taxes. Were not they also compelled to give to
the same Turpio fifteen thousand sesterces, when
their tenths had been sold for a hundred medimni?
If, as you are especially anxious to do, you could prove that these compliments all
went to the farmers, and that none of them reached you, still these sums, taken and
extorted as they were by your violence and injustice, ought to ensure your
conviction; but, as you cannot persuade any one that you were so foolish as to wish
Apronius and Turpio, two slaves, to become rich at your own risk and that of your
children, do you think that any one will doubt that through the instrumentality of
those emissaries all this money was really procured for you?
Again, Symmachus, a slave of Venus, is sent as farmer to Segesta, a city exempt
from such taxes; he brings letters from Verres, to order the cultivators to appear
in a court of some other city than their own, contrary to every resolution of the
senate, to all their rights and privileges, and to the Rupilian law. Hear the
letters which he sent to the Segestans. [The letters of Caius Verres are read.] Now
learn by one bargain made with an honourable and respected man, how this slave of
Venus insulted the cultivators of the soil; for there are other instances of this
sort.
There is a man of the name of Diocles, a citizen of Panormus, surnamed Phimes, an illustrious man,
and of high reputation as an agriculturist, he rented a farm in the Segestan
district, (for there are no traders in that place,) for six thousand sesterces; after having been assaulted by this slave of
Venus, he settled with him to give him sixteen thousand, six hundred, and sixty-four
sesterces. You may learn this from Verres's own
accounts. [The items entered under the name of Diocles of Panormus are read.] Anneius Brocchus also, a
senator, a man of a reputation, and of a virtue with which you are all acquainted,
was compelled to give money also besides corn to this same Symmachus. Was such a
man, a senator of the Roman people, a subject of profit to a slave of Venus, while
you were praetor?
Even if you were not aware that this body excelled all others in dignity, were you
not at least aware of this, that it furnished the judges? Previously, when the
equestrian order furnished the judges, infamous and rapacious magistrates in the
provinces were subservient to the farmers; they honoured all who were in their
employ; every Roman knight whom they saw in the province they pursued with
attentions and courtesies; and that conduct was not so advantageous to the guilty,
as it was a hindrance to many if they had acted in any respect contrary to the
advantage or inclination of that body. This sort of principle was somehow or other
diligently reserved among them as if by common consent, that whoever had thought any
Roman knight deserving of any affront, was to be considered by their whole order as
deserving of every possible misfortune.