In C. Verrem

Therefore Marcus Scaurus, who accused Cnaeus Dolabella, held him under his power and in subjection. Being a young man, when in prosecuting his inquiries he ascertained the numerous robberies and iniquities of that man, he acted skillfully and warily. He showed him a huge volume full of his exploits; he got from the fellow all he wanted against Dolabella. He brought him forward as a witness; the fellow said everything which he thought the accuser wished him to say.

And of that class of witnesses, men who were accomplices in his robberies, I might have had a great plenty if I had chosen to employ them; who offered of their own accord to go wherever I chose, in order to deliver themselves from the danger of actions, and from a connection with his crimes. I rejected the voluntary offers of all of them. There was not only no room for a traitor, there was none even for a deserter in my camp. Perhaps they are to be considered better accusers than I, who do all these things; but I wish the defender of others to be praised in my person, not the accuser. He does not dare bring in his accounts to the treasury before Dolabella is condemned. He prevails on the senate to grant him an adjournment; because he said that his account-books had been sealed up by the accusers of Dolabella; just as if he had not the power of copying them. This man is the only man who never renders accounts to the treasury. You have heard the accounts of his quaestorship rendered in three lines; but no accounts of his lieutenancy, till he was condemned and banished who alone could detect any error in them. The accounts of his praetorship, which, according to the decree of the senate, he ought to have rendered immediately on leaving office, he has not rendered to this very day.

He said that he was waiting for the quaestors to appear in the senate; just as if a praetor could not give in his accounts without the quaestor, in the same way as the quaestor does without the praetor, (as you did, Hortensius, and as all have done.) He said that Dolabella obtained the same permission. The omen pleased the conscript fathers rather than the excuse; they admitted it. But now the quaestors have arrived some time. Why have you not rendered them now? Among the accounts of that infamous lieutenancy and pro-quaestorship of yours, those items occur which are necessarily set down also in the accounts of Dolabella. (An extract is read of the account of the damages assessed against Dolabella, praetor of the Roman people, for money received.) [*](Hottomann makes sure that there is some corruption of the MS. here, and Graevius agrees with him. “The whole passage is very obscure and the more difficult because we are not acquainted with the forms of proceeding which were followed against magistrates convicted of extortion. It is not clear, as far as appears from Cicero's speech, that, though there was a discrepancy between the accounts of Verres and that of Dolabella, the fault was necessarily in the accounts of Verres; especially as Dolabella had been justly convicted of extortion and malversation already. Undoubtedly Cicero produced witnesses who assisted to put the case in the point of view in which he wished it to be looked at.”—Desmenorius.)

The sum which Dolabella entered to Verres as having been received from him, is less than the sum which Verres has entered as having been paid to him by four hundred and thirty-five thousand sesterces. The sum which Dolabella made out that Verres received less than he has put down in his account-books, is two hundred and thirty-two thousand sesterces. Dolabella also made out that on account of corn he had received one million and eight hundred thousand sesterces; as to which you, O most incorruptible man, had quite a different entry in your account-books. Hence it is that those extraordinary gains of yours have accumulated, which we are examining into without any guide, article by article as we can;—hence the account with Quintus and Cnaeus Postumus Curtius, made up of many items; of which that fellow has not one in his account-books;—hence the fourteen hundred thousand sesterces paid to Publius Tadius at Athens, as I will prove by witnesses;—hence the praetorship, openly purchased; unless indeed that also is doubtful, how that man became praetor.

Oh, he was a man, indeed, of tried industry and energy, or else of a splendid reputation for economy, or perhaps, which is however of the least importance, for his constant attendance at our assemblies;—a man who had lived before his quaestorship with prostitutes and pimps; who had passed his quaestorship you yourselves know how;—who, since that infamous quaestorship, has scarcely been three days in Rome: who, while absent, has not been out of sight, but has been the common topic of conversation for every one on account of his countless iniquities. He, on a sudden, the moment he came to Rome, is made praetor for nothing! Besides that, other money was paid to buy off accusations. To whom it was paid is, I think, nothing to me; nothing to the matter in hand. That it was paid was at the time notorious to every one while the occurrence was recent.

O you most foolish, most senseless man, when you were making up your accounts, and when you wanted to shirk out of the charge of having made extraordinary gains, did you think that you would escape sufficiently from all suspicion, if when you lent men money you did not enter any sums as given to them, and put down no such item at all in your account-books, while the Curtii were giving you credit in their books for all that had been received? What good did it do you that you had not put down what was paid to them? Did you think you were going to try your cause by the production of no other account-books than your own?