Then the Mamertines perceived that they could not longer retain the privilege which
they had bought from its unprincipled author. Come now, you, who were desirous to be
thought such a scrupulous interpreter of treaties, tell us why you compelled the
Tauromenians and the Netians to furnish corn; for both of those are confederate
cities. And the Netians were not wanting to themselves, for as soon as you
pronounced your decision that you willingly excused the Mamertines, they came before
you, and proved to you that their case under the treaty was exactly the same. You
could not make a different decree in a case which was identical with the other. You
pronounce that the Netians are not bound to furnish corn, and still you exact it
from them. Give me the papers of this same praetor referring to his decrees, and to
the corn that was ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat that was bought. [The
papers of the praetor referring to the decrees, to the corn ordered to be supplied,
and to the wheat purchased, are read.] In a case of such enormous and shameful
inconsistency, what can we suspect, O judges, rather than that which is inevitable;
either that money was not given to him by the Netians when he demanded it, or else
that the Mamertines were given to understand that they had disposed of all their
bribes and presents very advantageously, when others, whose case was identical with
theirs, could not obtain the same privileges?
Will he here again venture to make mention to me of the panegyric of the
Mamertines? for who is there of you, O judges, who is not aware how many weapons
that furnishes against him? In the first place, as in courts of justice it is more
respectable for a man who cannot produce ten witnesses to speak to his character, to
produce none at all, than not to complete the number made as it were legitimate by
usage; so there are a great many cities in Sicily over which you were governor for three years; almost all the
rest accuse you; a few insignificant ones, kept back by fear, say nothing; one
speaks in your favour. What does all this show except that you are aware how
advantageous genuine evidence to a person's character is; but that, nevertheless,
your administration of the province was such that you are forced of necessity to do
without that advantage?
In the next place, as I said before on another occasion, what sort of a panegyric
is that, when the chief men of the deputation commissioned to utter it, stated, both
that a ship had been built for you at the public expense, and also that they
themselves had been plundered and pillaged by you in respect of their private
property? Lastly, what else is it that these people do, when they are the only
people in all Sicily who praise you, beyond proving to us that you gave them
everything of which you robbed our republic? What colony is there in Italy in possession of such privileges, what
municipality is there enjoying such immunities, as to have had for all these years
such a profitable exemption from all burdens, as the city of the Mamertines has had
for three years? They alone have not given what they were bound to give according to
the treaties; they alone, as long as that man was praetor, enjoyed immunity from all
burdens; they alone under that man's authority lived in such a condition that they
gave nothing to the Roman people, and refused nothing to Verres.
But to return to the fleet, from which topic I have been digressing; you accepted a
ship from the Mamertines contrary to the laws; you granted them relaxation contrary
to the treaties; so that you behaved like a rogue twice in the case of one city, as
you both granted indulgences which you had no right to grant, and accepted what it
was not lawful for you to accept. You ought to have exacted a ship from them fit to
sail against robbers, not to carry off the produce of your robberies; one which
might have defended the province from being despoiled, not one that was to bear away
the fresh spoils of the province. The Mamertines gave you both a city to which you
might carry all the plunder you amassed from all quarters, and also a ship, in which
you might take it away. That town was a receptacle for your plunder, those men were
the witnesses to and guardians of your plunder; they supplied to you both a
repository for your thefts, and a conveyance for them. In consequence, even when you
had lost a fleet by your own avarice and worthlessness, you did not venture to
require a ship of the Mamertines, at a time when our want of ships was so excessive,
and the distress of the province so great, that, even if it had been necessary to
beg as supplicants for a ship, they would have granted it. But all your power either
of commanding a vessel to be furnished, or of begging for one, was crippled, not by
the bireme supplied to the Roman people, but by that splendid merchant vessel given
to the praetor. That was the price of your authority, of the reinforcement they were
bound to supply, of exemption from the requirements of law, and usage, and of the
treaty.
You have now the case of the trusty assistance of one city lost to us and sold.
Now listen to a new system of robbery first invented by Verres.
Each city was always accustomed to give to its admiral the money
necessary for the expense of the fleet, for provisions, for pay, and for all such
things. The admiral did not dare to give the sailors any ground for accusing him,
and was, besides, bound to render an account of the money to his fellow-citizens. In
the whole business all the trouble and all the risk was his. This, I say, was the
regular course not only in Sicily, but in
every province, even in the case of the pay and expense of the Latin allies, at the
time when we were accustomed to employ their assistance. Verres was the first man,
ever since our dominion was established, who ordered that all that money should be
paid to him by the cities, in order that whoever he chose to appoint might have the
handling of that money.
Who can doubt why you were the first man to change the ancient custom of all your
predecessors, to disregard the great advantage of having the money pass through the
hands of others, and to undertake a work of such difficulty, so liable to
accusation,—a task of such delicacy, inseparable from suspicion? After that, other
sources of gain are established arising from this one article of the navy; just
listen to their number, O judges;—he receives money from the cities to excuse them
from furnishing sailors; the sailors that are furnished he releases for a bribe; he
makes a profit of the whole of thee pay of those who are thus released; he does not
pay the rest all that he ought to pay. All this you shall have proved to you by the
evidence of the cities. Read the evidence of the cities. [The evidence of the cities
is read.]
Did you ever hear of such a man? Did you ever hear, O judges, of such impudence? of
such audacity? to impose on the cities the payment of a sum of money in proportion
to the number of soldiers, and to fix a regular price, six hundred sesterces, for the discharge of each sailor! and as those
who paid that sum were released from service for the whole summer, Verres pocketed
all that he received both for their pay and for their maintenance. And by this means
he made a double profit of the discharge of one person. And this most insane of men,
at a time of frequent invasion of pirates, and of imminent danger to the province,
did this so openly, that the pirates themselves were aware of it, and the whole
province was a witness to it.
When, owing to this man's inordinate avarice, there was a fleet indeed in name in
Sicily, but in reality empty ships, fit
only to carry plunder for the praetor, not to strike terror into pirates;
nevertheless, while Publius Caesetius and Publius Tadius were sailing about with
these ten half-manned ships, they, I will not say took, but led away with them one
ship, laden with the spoils of the pirates, evidently overwhelmed and sinking with
the burden of its freight. That vessel was full of a number of most beautiful
quilts, full of quantities of well-wrought plate, and of coined money; full of
embroidered robes. This one vessel was not taken by our fleet, but was found at
Megaris, a place not far from Syracuse. And when the news was brought to him,
although he was lying in his tent on the shore, with a lot of women, drunk, still he
roused himself, and immediately sent to the quaestor and to his own lieutenant many
men to act as guards, in order that everything might be brought to him to see in an
uninjured state, as soon as possible.