But this city was the Phaselis for that robber and pirate of Sicily. Hither everything was brought from all quarters; with them it was left; whatever required to be concealed, they kept separate and stored away. By their agency he contrived everything which he wished put on board ship privately, and exported secretly; and in their harbour he contrived to have a vessel of the largest size built for him to send to Italyloaded with plunder. In return for these services, he gave them immunity from all expense, all labour, all military service, in short, from everything. For three years they were the only people, not only in Sicily, but, according to my opinion, in the whole world at such a time, who enjoyed excuse, relief, freedom, and immunity from every sort of expense, and trouble, and office.

Hence arose that Verrean festival; hence it was that he ventured to order Sextus Cominius to be dragged before him at a banquet, at whom he attempted to throw a goblet, whom he ordered to be seized by the throat, and to be hurried from the banquet and thrown into a dark prison; hence came that cross, on which, in the sight of many men, he suspended a Roman citizen; that cross which he never ventured to erect anywhere except among that people, whom he had made sharers in all his crimes and robberies. Do you, O Mamertines, dare to come to praise any one? By what authority? by that which you ought to have with the Senatorial order? by that which you ought to have with the Roman people?

Is there any city, not only in our provinces, but in the most distant nations, either so powerful, or so free, or so savage and uncivilized? is there any king, who would not invite a Senator of the Roman people to his house and to his home? An honour which is paid not only to the man, but in the first place to the Roman people, by whose indulgence we have risen to this order, and secondly to the authority of this order; and unless that is respected among our allies, where will be the name and dignity of the empire among foreign nations? The Mamertines did not give me any public invitation—when I say me, that is a trifle, but when they did not invite a Senator of the Roman people, they withheld an honour due not to the man but to his order. For to Tullius himself, the most splendid and magnificent house of Cnaeus Pompeius Basilicus was opened; with whom he would have lodged even if he had been invited by you. There was also the most honourable house of the Percennii, who are now also called Pompeius; where Lucius my brother lodged and was received by them with the greatest eagerness. A Senator of the Roman people, as far as depended on you as a body, lay in your town, and passed the night in the public streets. No other city ever did such a thing. “Yes,” say you, “for you were instituting a prosecution against our friend.” Will you put your own interpretation on what private business I have of my own, by diminishing the honour due to the Senate?

But I will make my complaint of this conduct, if ever the time comes that there is any discussion concerning you among that body, which, up to this time, has been affronted by no one but you. With what face have you presented yourself before the eyes of the Roman people? when you have not yet pulled down that cross, which is even now stained with the blood of a Roman citizen, which is fixed up in your city by the harbour, and have not thrown it into the sea and purified all that place, before you came to Rome, and before this tribunal. On the territory of the Mamertines, connected with us by treaty, at peace with us, is that monument of your cruelty raised. Is not your city the only one where, when any one arrives at it from Italy, he sees the cross of a Roman citizen before he sees any friend of the Roman people? which you are in the habit of displaying to the people of Rhegium, whose city you envy, and to your inhabitants, Roman citizens as they are, to make them think less of themselves, and be less inclined to despise you, when they see the privileges of our citizenship extinguished by such a punishment.

But you say you bought these things? What? did you forget to purchase of the same Heius that Attalic Attalus, king of Pergamus, had been the inventor of weaving gold thread into tapestry work, and therefore tapestry with gold threads interwoven in it was called by his name.tapestry, celebrated over the whole of Sicily? You might have bought them in the same way as you did the statues. For what did you do? Did you wish to spare the account books? This escaped the notice of that stupid man; he thought that what he stole from the wardrobe would be less notorious than what he had stolen from the private chapel. But how did he get it? I cannot relate it more plainly than Heius himself related it before you. When I asked, whether any other part of his property had come to Verres, he answered that he had sent him orders to send the tapestry to Agrigentumto him. I asked whether he had sent it. He replied as he must, that is, that he had been obedient to the praetor; that he had sent it.—I asked whether it had arrived at Agrigentum; he said it had arrived.—I asked in what condition it had returned; he said it had not returned yet.—There was a laugh and a murmur from all the people.

Did it never occur to you in this instance to order him to make an entry in his books, that he had sold you this tapestry too, for six thousand five hundred sesterces? Did you fear that your debts would increase, if these things were to cost you six thousand five hundred sesterces, which you could easily sell for two hundred thousand? It was worth that, believe me. You would have been able to defend yourself if you had given that sum for it. No one would then have asked how much it was worth. If you could only prove that you had bought it, you could easily make your cause and your conduct appear reasonable to any one. But as it is, you have no way of getting out of your difficulty about the tapestry. What shall I say next?