This Gavius whom I am speaking of, a citizens of Cosa, when he (among that vast number of Roman citizens who had been
treated in the same way) had been thrown by Verres into prison, and somehow or other
had escaped secretly out of the stone-quarries, and had come to Messana, being now almost within sight of Italy and of the walls of Rhegium, and being revived, after that fear of death
and that darkness, by the light, as it were, of liberty and of the fragrance of the
laws, began to talk at Messana, and to
complain that he, a Roman citizen, had been thrown into prison. He said that he was
now going straight to Rome, and that he
would meet Verres on his arrival there.
The
miserable man was not aware that it made no difference e whether he said this at
Messana, or before the man's face in his
own praetorian palace. For, as I have shown you before, that man had selected this
city as the assistant in his crimes, the receiver of his thefts, the partner in all
his wickedness. Accordingly, Gavius is at once brought before the Mamertine
magistrates; and, as it happened, Verres came on that very day to Messana. The matter is brought before him. He is
told that the man was a Roman citizen, who was complaining that at Syracuse he had been confined in the
stone-quarries, and who, when he was actually embarking on board ship, and uttering
violent threats against Verres, had been brought back by them, and reserved in order
that he himself might decide what should be done with him.
He thanks the men and praises their good-will and diligence in his behalf. He
himself, inflamed with wickedness and frenzy, comes into the forum. His eyes glared;
cruelty was visible in his whole countenance. All men waited to see what does he was
going to take,—what he was going to do; when all of a sudden he orders the man to be
seized, and to be stripped and bound in the middle of the forum, and the rods to be
got ready. The miserable man cried out that he was a Roman citizen, a citizen, also,
of the municipal town of Cosa,—that he had
served with Lucius Pretius a most illustrious Roman knight, who was living as a
trader at Panormus, and from whom
Verres might know that he was speaking the truth. Then Verres says that he has
ascertained that he had been sent into Sicily by the leaders of the runaway slaves, in order to act as a
spy; a matter as to which there was no witness, no trace, nor even the slightest
suspicion in the mind of any one.
Then he orders the man to be most violently scourged on all sides. In the middle of
the forum of Messana a Roman citizen, O
judges, was beaten with rods; while in the mean time no groan was heard, no other
expression was heard from that wretched man, amid all his pain, and between the
sound of the blows, except these words, “I am a citizen of Rome.” He fancied that by this one statement of his
citizenship he could ward off all blows, and remove all torture from his person. He
not only did not succeed in averting by his entreaties the violence of the rods, but
as he kept on repeating his entreaties and the assertion of his citizenship, a
cross—a cross I say—was got ready for that miserable man, who had never witnessed
such a stretch of power.
O the sweet name of liberty! O the admirable privileges of our citizenship! O
Porcian law! O Sempronian laws! O power of the tribunes, bitterly regretted by, and
at last restored to the Roman people! Have all our rights fallen so far, that in a
province of the Roman people,—in a town of our confederate allies,—a Roman citizen
should be bound in the forum, and beaten with rods by a man who only had the fasces
and the axes through the kindness of the Roman people? What shall I say? When fire,
and red-hot plates and other instruments of torture were employed? It the bitter
entreaties and the miserable cries of that man had no power to restrain you, were
you not moved even by the weeping and loud groans of the Roman citizens who were
present at that time? Did you dare to drag any one to the cross who said that he was
a Roman citizen? I was unwilling, O judges, to press this point so strongly at the
former pleading; I was unwilling to do so. For you saw how the feelings of the
multitude were excited against him with indignation, and hatred, and fear of their
common danger. I, at that time, fixed a limit to my oration, and checked the
eagerness of Caius Numitorius a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, one of
my witnesses. And I rejoiced that Glabrio had acted (and he had acted most wisely)
as he did in dismissing that witness immediately, in the middle of the discussion.
In fact he was afraid that the Roman people might seem to have inflicted that
punishment on Verres by tumultuary violence, which he was anxious he should only
suffer according to the laws and by your judicial sentence.
Now since it is made clear beyond a doubt to every one, in what state your case is,
and what will become of you, I will deal thus with you: I will prove that that
Gavius whom you all of a sudden assert to have been a spy, had been confined by you
in the stone-quarries at Syracuse; and
I will prove that, not only by the registers of the Syracusans,—lest you should be
able to say that, because there is a man named Gavius mentioned in those documents,
I have invented this charge, and picked out this name so as to be able to say that
this is the man,—but in accordance with your own choice I will produce witnesses,
who will state that that identical man was thrown by you into the stone-quarries at
Syracuse. I will produce, also,
citizens of Cosa, his fellow citizens and
relations,, who shall teach you, though it is too late, and who shall also teach the
judges, (for it is not too late for them to know them,) that that Publius Gavius
whom you crucified was a Roman citizen, and a citizen of the municipality of
Cosa, not a spy of runaway slaves.
When I have made all these points, which I undertake to prove, abundantly plain to
your most intimate friends, then I will also turn my attention to that which is
granted me by you. I will say that I am content with that. For what—what, I say—did
you yourself lately say, when in an agitated state you escaped from the outcry and
violence of the Roman people? Why, that he had only cried out that he was a Roman
citizen because he was seeking some respite, but that he was a spy. My witnesses are
unimpeachable. For what else does Caius Numitorius say? what else do Marcus and
Publius Cottius say, most noble men of the district of Tauromenium? what else does Marcus Lucceius
say, who had a great business as a money-changer at Rhegium? what else do all the others ray? For as yet witnesses have
only been produced by me of this class, not men who say that they were acquainted
with Gavius, but men who say that they saw him at the time that he was being dragged
to the cross, while crying out that he was a Roman citizen. And you, O Verres, say
the same thing. You confess that he did cry out that he was a Roman citizen; but
that the name of citizenship did not avail with you even as much as to cause the
least hesitation in your mind, or even any brief respite from a most cruel and
ignominious punishment.