In C. Verrem

Cicero, Marcus Tullius

Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 1. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1903.

Why in the third year of your praetorship did you order the Calactans to carry the tenths of their land, which they had been accustomed to pay at Calacta, to Marcus Caesius the farmer of Amestratus, a thing which they had never done before you were praetor, and which you yourself had never ordered in the two years preceding? Why was Theomnastus the Syracusan sent by you into the district of Mutyca, where he so harassed the cultivators, that for their second teethe they were unavoidably forced to buy wheat, because they had actually none of their own, (a thing which I shall prove happened also in the case of other cities.)

But now, from the agreements made with the people of Hybla, which were made with the farmer Cnaeus Sergius, you will perceive that six times as much corn as was sown was exacted of the cultivators Read the accounts of the sowings and the agreements, extracted from the public registers. Read. [The agreements of the people of Hybla with Cnaeus Sergius, extracted out of the public registers, are read.] Listen also to the returns of the sowings, and the agreements of the men of Mena with that slave of Venus. Read them out of the public registers. [The returns of the Sowings, arid the agreements of the Menans with the servant of Venus, extracted from the public registers, are read.] Will you, O judges, endure that a great deal more than has been produced should be exacted from our allies, from the cultivators of the domain of the Roman people, from those who are labouring for you, are in your service, who are so eager that the Roman people should be fed by them, that they only retain for themselves and their children enough for their actual subsistence, and should be exacted too with the greatest violence, and the most bitter insults?

I feel, O judges, that I must now set some bounds to the length of my speech, and that I must avoid wearying you. I will no longer dwell on one kind of injury alone, and I will leave the other instances out of my speech, though they will still make a part of my accusation. You shall hear the complaints of the Agregentines, most gallant, and most industrious men; you shall become acquainted, O judges, with the sufferings and the injuries of the Entellans, a people of the greatest perseverance and the greatest industry; the wrongs of the men of Heraclea, and Gela, and Solentum shall be mentioned: you shall be told of the fields of the Catanians, a most wealthy people and most friendly to us, ravaged by Apronius: you shall be made aware that the cities of Tyndaris, that most noble city, of Cephalaedis, of Halentia, of Apollonia, of Enguina, of Capitia, have been ruined by the iniquity of these farmers; that actually nothing is left to the citizens of Ina, of Murgentia, of Assoria, of Elorum, of Enna, and of Ietum; that the people of Cetaria and Acheria, small cities, are wholly crushed and destroyed; in short, that all the lands liable to the payment of tenths have been for three years tributary to the Roman people, to the extent of one tenth of their produce, and to Caius Verres to the extent of all the rest; that to most of the cultivators nothing at all is left, that if anything was either remitted to or left to any one, it was only just so much as remained of that property by which the avarice of that man had bees satiated.

I have reserved the territories of two cities, O judges, to speak of last, the best and noblest of all, the territory of Aetna and that of Leontini: I will say nothing of the gains made out of these districts in his three years; I will select one year in order that I more easily may be able to explain what I have settled to mention. I will take the third year, because it is both the most recent, and because it has been managed by him in such a way that, since he knew that he was certainly going to depart, he evidently did not care if he left behind him not one cultivator of the soil in all Sicily. We will speak of the tenths of the territory of Aetna and Leontini. Give heed, O judges, carefully. The lands are fertile; it is the third year;

Apronius is the farmer. I will speak a little of the people of Aetna; for they themselves at the former pleading spoke in the name of their city. You recollect that Artemidorus of Aetna, the chief of that deputation, said, in the name of his city, that Apronius had come to Aetna with the slaves of Venus; that he had summoned the magistrates before him; that he had ordered a couch to be spread for him in the middle of the forum; that he was accustomed every day to feast not only in public, but at the public expense; that, when at those feasts the concert began to sound, and slaves began to serve him with wine in large goblets, then he used to detain the cultivators of the soil, and not only with injustice, but even with insolence, to extort, from them whatever quantity of corn he had ordered them to supply.

You heard all these things, O judges, all which I now pass by and leave unnoticed. I say nothing of the luxury of Apronius, nothing of his insolence, nothing of his unexampled profligacy and wickedness; I will only speak of the gain and profit made out of one district in one year, so that you may the more easily be able to form your conjectures of the whole three years and of the whole of Sicily; but I do not mean to say much about the people of Aetna, for they have come hither themselves, they have brought with them their public documents; they have proved to you what gains were made by that honest man, the intimate friend of the praetor, Apronius. I pray of you learn this from their own testimony. Read the testimony of the people of Aetna. [The testimony of the people of Aetna is read.] What are you saying? Speak, speak, I pray you, louder, that the Roman people may hear about its revenues, its cultivators of the soil, its allies, and its friends. “Three hundred thousand medimni; and fifty thousand sesterces.” Oh, the immortal gods! Does one district in one year years three hundred thousand modii of wheat, and fifty thousand sesterces besides, as a compliment to Apronius? Did the tenths sell for so much less than they were really worth? or, though they had been sold at a sufficiently high price, was such a quantity of corn and money nevertheless exacted by main force from the cultivators? For whichever of these you say was the truth, blame and criminality will attach to it.

For you certainly will not say (what I wish you would say) that this quantity never came to Apronius. So I will hold you here, not only by the public covenants and letters, but also from the private ones of the cultivators, so as to let you understand that you were not mere diligent in executing robberies, than I have been in detecting them. Will you be able to bear this? Will any one defend you? Will these men be able to endure this, if they are inclined to pronounce a sentence favourable to you,—that Quintus Apronius, at one visit, out of one district, (besides all the money which was paid him, and which I have mentioned,) should have taken three hundred thousand modii of wheat, under the name of a compliment?

What! are they the men of Aetna alone who say this? Yes, the Centuripans also, who are in occupation of far the largest part of the Aetnaean district, to whose ambassadors, most noble men, Andron and Artemon, their senate gave commissions which had reference to their city in his public capacity, concerning those injuries which the citizens of Centuripa sustained not in their own territories, but in those of others. The senate and people of Centuripa did not choose to send ambassadors; but the Centuripan cultivators of the soil, which is the greatest body of such men in Sicily, a body of most honourable and most wealthy men, themselves selected three ambassadors, fellow citizens of their own, in order that by their evidence you might be made aware of the calamities, not of one district only, but of almost all Sicily. For the Centuripans are engaged as cultivators of the soil in almost every part of Sicily. And they are the more important and the more trustworthy witnesses against you, because, the other cities ore influenced by their own distresses alone, the Centuripans as they occupy land in almost every district, have felt the injuries and wrongs of the other cities also.

But as I have said, the case of the men of Aetna is clear enough, and established both by public and by private documents. The task allotted to my diligence is to be required of me rather in the district of Leontini, for this reason, because the Leontini themselves have not assisted me much by their public authority. Nor, in truth, while that fellow was praetor, did these injuries of the farmers very greatly affect them, or rather, I might say, they did them good. This may, perhaps, appear a marvellous or even an incredible thing to you, that in such general distress of the cultivators of the soil, the Leontini, who were the heads of the corn interest, should have been free from injury and calamity. This is the reason, O judges, that in the territory of Leontini, no one of the Leontini, with the exception of the single family of Mnasistratus, occupies any land. And so, O judges, you shall hear the evidence of Mnasistratus, a most honest and virtuous man. Do not expect to hear any others of the Leontini, whom not only Apronius, but whom even a tempest in their fields could not injure. They in truth not only suffered no inconvenience, but even in the rapine of Apronius they found gain and advantage.

Wherefore, since the city and embassy of the Leontini has failed me on account of the cause which I have mentioned, I must devise a plan and contrive a way for myself by which I may get at the gain of Apronius, or even at his enormous and wicked booty. The tenths of the Leontini territory were sold in the third year of Verres's praetorship for thirty-six thousand medimni of wheat; that is, for two hundred and twenty-six thousand modii of wheat. A great price, O judges, a great price; and I cannot deny it. Therefore it is certain that there must have been a loss, or at all events not a great gain to the farmers. For this very often happens to men who have taken a contract at a high rate.

What will you think if I prove to you that, by this one purchase, there were made a hundred thousand modii of profit? what if it was two hundred thousand? what if three? what if four hundred thousand was the sum? Will you still doubt for whom that immense booty was acquired? Will any one say that I am unfair if from the mere magnitude of the gain made I form a conjecture as to the direction of the stolen goods and plunder? What if I prove to you, O judges, that those men who are making four hundred thousand modii of profit would have suffered a loss if your iniquity, O Verres, if judges of your retinue had not stepped in? Can any one doubt, in a case of so much gain and so much iniquity, that you made such immense profit by dishonest means? that for such immense gains you were willing to be dishonest?

How then, O judges, am I to arrive at this knowledge of how much profit was made? Not from the accounts of Apronius, for when I sought for them, I could not find them, and when I brought him into court, I made him deny that he kept any accounts at all. If he was telling lies, why did he remove them out of the way, if they were likely to do you no harm? If he really had kept any accounts at all, does not that alone prove plainly enough, that it was not his own business that he was conducting? For it is a quality of tenths, that they cannot be managed without many papers; for it is necessary to keep an account of, and to set down in books the names of all the cultivators, and with each name the amount of their tenth. All the cultivators made returns of their acres according to your command and regulation; I do not believe that any one made a return of a smaller quantity than he had in cultivation, when there were so many crosses, so many penalties, so many judges of that retinue before his eyes. On an acre of Leontini ground about a medimnus of wheat is usually sown, according to the regular and constant allowance of seed. The land returns about eightfold on a fair average, but in an extraordinarily favourable season, about tenfold. And whenever that is the case, it then happens that the tenth is just the same quantity as was sown; that is to say, as many acres as are sown, so many medimni are due.

As this was the case, I say first of all, that the tenths of the territory of Leontini were sold for many more thousand medimni than there were thousands of acres sown in the district of Leontini. But if it was impossible for them to produce more than ten medimni on an acre, and if it was fair that a medimnus should be paid out of each acre liable to the payment of tenths, when the land produced a tenfold crop, which however very seldom happened, what was the calculation of the farmer if indeed it was the tenths of the cultivator that were being sold, and no his whole property, when he bought the tenths for many more medimni than there had been acres sown? In the Lecutini district the list and return made of acres is not more than thirty thousand. The tenths were sold for thirty-six thousand medimni. Did Apronius make a blunder, or rather was he mad? Yes, he would indeed have been mad if it had been lawful for the cultivators to give only what was due from them, and had not rather been compulsory on them to give whatever Apronius commanded.

If I prove that no man gave less for his tenths than three medimni to the acre, you will admit, I suppose, that, even supposing the produce amounted to a tenfold crop, no one paid less than three tenths. And indeed this was begged as a favour from Apronius, that they might be allowed to compound at three medimni an acre. For, as four and even five were exacted from many people, and as many had not only not a grain of corn, but not even a wisp of straw left out of all their crop and after all their year's labour; then the cultivators of Centuripa, which are the main body of agriculturists in the Leontini district, assembled in one place. They sent as a delegate to Apronius, Andron of Centuripa, a man among the first of his state for honour and nobility, (the same man whom now the city of Centuripa has sent to this trial as a deputy and as a witness,) in order that he might plead with him the cause of the cultivators of the soil, and beg of him not to exact of the Centuripan cultivators more than three medimni for each acre.

This request was with difficulty obtained from Apronius, as a most excessive kindness to those men who were even then safe. And when this was obtained, this is what was obtained, forsooth, that they might be allowed to pay three tenths instead of one. But if your own interest had not been at stake in the matter, O Verres, they would rather have entreated you not to be made to pay more than one tenth, than have begged of a promise not to be made to pay more than three. Now, that at the present time I may pass over those rules which Apronius, in a kingly, or rather in a tyrannical spirit, made with respect to the cultivators, and that I may not at present call those men from whom he took all their corn, and to whom he left nothing not only of their corn, but nothing even of their property; just see how much gain is made of these three medimni, which he considered as a great favour and indulgence.

The return of acres in the district of Leontini is thirty thousand. This amounts to ninety thousand medimni of wheat that is to say, to five hundred and forty thousand modii of wheat. Deduct two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of wheat, being what the tenths were sold for, and there remain three hundred and twenty-four thousand modii of wheat; add to the sum total of five hundred and forty thousand modii three fiftieths, that is to say, thirty-two thousand four hundred modii of wheat, (for three fiftieths besides were exacted from every one;) this now amounts to three hundred and fifty-six thousand four hundred modii of wheat. But I said that four hundred thousand sesterces of profit had been made. For I do not include in this calculation those who were not allowed to compound at three medimni an acre. But that by this present calculation I may make out the sum which I promised to do, many were compelled besides to pay two sesterces, and many even five, with each medimnus, and those who had to pay least paid a sesterce with every medimnus. To take the least of these sums, as we calculated there were ninety thousand medimni, we must add to that, according to this new and infamous example here given, ninety thousand sesterces.

Will he now dare to tell me, that he sold the tenths at a high price, when he took for himself more than twice as much as he sent to the Roman people out of the same district? You sold the tenths of the Leontine district for two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of wheat? If you did so according to law, it was a fine price; if your caprice was the law, it was a low price; if you sold them so that those were called tenths which were in reality a half, you sold them at a very low price. For the yearly produce of all Sicily might be sold for much more, if that was what the senate or people of Rome had desired you to do. Indeed, the tenths were often sold for as much, when they were sold according to the law of Hiero, as they have been sold for now under the law of Verres. Let me have the accounts of the sale of tenths under Caius Norbanus. [The account of the sale of the tenths in the Leontine district under Caius Norbanus is read.] And yet, then, there were no trials about the return of acres; nor was Artemidorus Cornelius a judge, nor did a Sicilian magistrate exact from a cultivator whatever the farmer demanded; nor was it entreated as a favour from the farmer to be allowed to compound at three medimni an acre; nor was a cultivator obliged to give an additional present of money, nor to add three-fiftieths of corn. And yet a area, quantity of corn was sent to the Roman people.

But what is the meaning of these fiftieths? what is the meaning of these additional presents of money? By what right, and, what is more, in what manner did you do this The cultivator gave the money. How or whence did he get it? If he had wished to be very liberal, he would have used a more heaped up measure, as men formerly used to do in the matter of the tenths, when they were sold by fair laws, and on fair terms. He gave the money. Where did he get it? from his corn? As if, while you were praetor, he had anything to sell. Something, then, must be taken from his principal, in order to add this pecuniary gratuity for Apronius to all the profit which he derived from the lands. The next thing is, Did they give it willingly or unwillingly? Willingly? They were very fond, I suppose, of Apronius. Unwillingly? How, then, were they compelled to do so, except by violence and ill-treatment? Again; that man, that most senseless man, in the selling of the tenths, caused additional sums to be added to every tenth. It was not much; he added two or three thousand sesterces. In the three years he made about five hundred thousand sesterces. He did this neither according to any precedent, nor by any right; nor did he make any return of that money; nor can any man ever imagine how he is going to defend himself against this petty charge.

And, as this is the case, do you dare to say that you sold the tenths at a high price, when it is evident that you sold the property and fortunes of the cultivators, not for the cake of the Roman people, but with a view to your own gain. As if any steward, from a farm which had been used to produce ten thousand sesterces, having cut down and sold the trees, having taken away the buildings and the stock, and having driven off all the cattle, sent his master twenty thousand sesterces instead of ten, and made a hundred thousand more for himself. At first the master, not knowing the injury that had been done to him, would be glad, and be delighted with his steward, because he had got so much more profit out of the farm; but afterwards, when he heard that all those things on which the profit and cultivation of his farm depends have been removed and sold, he would punish his steward with the greatest severity, and think himself very ill used. So also, the Roman people, when it hears that Caius Verres has sold the tenths for more than that most innocent man, Caius Sacerdos, whom he succeeded, thinks that it has got a good steward and guardian over its lands and crops; but when it finds out that he has sold all the stock of the cultivators, all the resources of the revenue, and has destroyed all the hopes of their posterity by his avarice,—that he has devastated and drained the allotments and the Lands subject to tribute,—that he has made himself most enormous gain and booty,—it will perceive that it has been shamefully treated, and will think that man worthy of the severest punishment.

By what, then, can this be made evident? Chiefly by this fact, that the land of the province of Sicily liable to the payment of tenths is deserted through the avarice of that man. Nor does it happen only that those who have remained on their lands are now cultivating a smaller number of acres, but also very many rich men, farmers on a large scale, and skillful men, have deserted large and productive farms, and abandoned their whole allotments. That may be very easily ascertained from the public documents of the states; because according to the law of Hiero the number of cultivators is every year entered in the books by public authority before the magistrates. Read now how many cultivators of the Leontine district there were when Verres took the government. Eighty-three. And how many made returns in his third year? Thirty-two. I see that there were fifty-one cultivators so entirely got rid of that they had no successors. How many cultivators were there of the district of Mutyca, when you arrived? Let us see from the public documents. A hundred and eighty-eight. How many in your third year? A hundred and one. That one district has to regret eighty-seven cultivators, owing to that man's ill-treatment, and to that extent our republic has to regret the loss of so many heads of families, and demands them back at his hand, since they are the real revenues of the Roman people. The district of Herbita had in his first year two hundred and fifty-seven cultivators; in his third, a hundred and twenty. From this region a hundred and thirty-seven heads of families have fled like banished men. The district of Agyrium—what men lived in that land! how honourable, how wealthy they were? —had two hundred and fifty cultivators in the first year of your praetorship. What had it in the third year? Eighty,—as you have heard the Agyrian deputies read from their public documents.