In C. Verrem

And that you may not marvel that so great a multitude has fled, as you find, from the public documents and from the returns of the cultivators, has fled, know that his cruelty and wickedness towards the cultivators was so excessive, (it is an incredible statement to make, O judges, but it is both a fact, and one that is notorious over all Sicily,) that men, on account of the insults and licentiousness of the collectors, actually killed themselves. It is proved that Diocles of Centuripa, a wealthy man, hung himself the very day that it was announced that Apronius had purchased the tenths. A man of high birth, Archonidas of Elorum, said that Dyrrachinus, the first man of his city, slew himself in the same way, when he heard that the collector had made a return, that, according to Verres's edict, he owed him a sum that he could not make good at the expense of all his property. Now you, though you always were the most dissolute and cruel of all mortals, still you never would have allowed, (because the groanings and lamentations of the province brought danger on your own head,)—you would never, I say, have allowed men to seek refuge from your injustice in hanging and death, if the matter had not tended to your profit and to your own acquisition of booty.

What! would you have suffered it? Listen, O judges; for I must strive with all my sinews, and labour earnestly to make all men perceive how infamous, how evident, how undeniable a crime they are seeking to efface by means of money. This is a grave charge, a serious charge,—it is the most serious one which has been made in the memory of man, ever since trials for peculation and extortion were first instituted,—that a praetor of the Roman people has had collectors of the tenths for his partners. It is not the case that a private individual is now for the first time having this charge brought against him by an enemy, or a defendant by his accuser. Long ago, while sitting on his seat of justice as praetor, while he had the province of Sicily, when he was not only feared (as is common) on account of his absolute power, but also on account of its cruelty, (which is his especial characteristic,) he heard this charge urged against him a thousand times, when it was not carelessness which delayed him from avenging it, but the consciousness of his wickedness and avarice that kept him in check. For the collectors used to say openly, and, above all the rest, that one who had the greatest influence with him, and who was laying waste the most extensive districts, Apronius, that very little of these immense gains came to them, that the praetor was their partner.

When the collectors were in the habit of saying this all over the province, and mixing up your name with so base and infamous a business, did it never come into your mind to take care of your own character? Did it never occur to you to look to your liberty and fortunes? When the terror of your name was constantly present to the ears and minds of the cultivators,—when the collectors made use, not of their own power, but of your wickedness and your name to compel the cultivators to come to terms with them,—Did you think that there would be any tribunal at Rome so profligate, so abandoned, so mercenary that any protection from its judgment would be found for you?—when it was notorious that, when the tenths had been sold contrary to the regulations, the laws, and the customs of all men, the collectors, while employed in seizing the property and fortunes of the cultivators, were used to say that the shares were yours, the affair yours, the plunder yours; and that you said nothing, and though you could not conceal that you were aware of it, were still able to bear and endure it, because the magnitude of the gain obscured the magnitude of the danger, and because the desire of money had a good deal more influence over you than the fear of judgment.

Be it so; you cannot deny the rest. You have not even left yourself this resource, to be able to say that you heard nothing of this,—that no mention of your infamy ever came to your ears; for the cultivators were complaining with groans and tears. Did you not know it? The whole province was loud in its indignation. Did no one tell you of it? Complaints were being made of your injuries, and meetings held on the subject at Home,—were you ignorant of this? Were you ignorant of all these facts? What? when Publius Rubrius summoned Quintus Apronius openly at Syracuse in your hearing, at a great assembly of the people, to be bound over to stand a trial, offering to prove, “that Apronius had frequently said that you were his partner in the affair of the tenths.” Did not these words strike you? did they not agitate you? did they not arouse you to take care of your own liberty and fortunes? You were silent; you even pacified their quarrel; you took pains to prevent the trial from coming on. O ye immortal gods! could either an innocent man have endured this? or would not even a man ever so guilty, if it were only because he thought that there might be a trial at Rome hereafter, have endeavoured by some dissimulation to study his character in the eyes of men?

What is the case? A wager is offered about a matter affecting your position as a free citizen, and your fortunes. Do you sit still and say nothing? do not you follow up the matter? do not you persevere? do not you ask to whom Apronius said it? who heard him? whence it arose? how it was stated to have happened If any one had whispered in your ear, and told you that Apronius was in the habit of saying that you were his partner, you ought to have been roused, to have summoned Apronius, and not to have been satisfied yourself with him, till you had satisfied the opinion of others with respect to yourself. But when in the crowded forum, in a great concourse of people, this charge was urged, in word and presence indeed, against Apronius, but in reality against you, could you ever have received such a blow in silence, unless you had decided that, say what you would in so evident a case, you would only make the matter worse?

Many men have dismissed quaestors, lieutenants, prefects, and tribunes, and ordered them to leave the province, because they thought that their own reputation was being injured through their misconduct, or because they considered that they were behaving ill in some particular. Would you never have addressed Apronius, a man scarcely a free man, profligate, abandoned, infamous, who could not preserve, I will not say an honest mind, but not even a pure soul, with even one harsh word, and that too when smarting under disgrace and insult yourself? And moreover, the respect due to a partnership would not have been so sacred in your eyes as to make you indifferent to the danger you were in, if you had not seen the matter was so well known and so notorious to every one.

Publius Scandilius, a Roman knight, whom you are all acquainted with, did afterwards adopt the same legal proceedings against this same Apronius respecting that partnership, which Rubrius had wished to adopt. He urged them on; he pressed it, he gave him no respite; security was given to the amount of five thousand sesterces; Scandilius began to demand recuperators or a judge. Does not this wicked praetor seem to be hemmed in now within sufficiently narrow bounds in his own province, yes, and even on his own throne and tribunal; so that he must either while present and sitting on the bench allow a trial to proceed affecting his own liberty, or else confess that he must be convicted by every tribunal in the world? The trial is on this formula, “that Apronius says that you are his partner in the matter of the tenths.” The province is yours; you are present, judgment is demanded from you yourself. What do you do? What do you decree? You say that you will assign judges. You do well; though where will there be found judges of such courage as to dare, in his province, when the praetor himself is present, to decide in a manner not only contrary to his with, but adverse even to his fortunes?

However, be it so; the case is evident; there was no one who did not say that he had heard this distinctly; all the most respectable men were most undoubted witnesses of it; there was no one in all Sicily who did not know that the tenths belonged to the praetor, no one who had not heard Apronius frequently say so; moreover, there was a fine body of settlers at Syracuse, many Roman knights, men of the highest consideration, out of which number the judges must be selected, who could not possibly decide in any other manner. Scandilius does not cease to demand judges; then that innocent man, who was so eager to efface that suspicion, and to remove it from himself, says that he will assign judges from his own retinue.

In the name of the good faith of gods and men, who is it that I am accusing? in whose case am I not desirous that my industry and diligence should be proved? What is it that I sought to effect and obtain by speaking and meditating on this matter? I have hold, I have hold I say, in the middle of the revenues of the Roman people, in the very crops of the province of Sicily, of a thief, manifestly embezzling the whole revenue derived from the corn, an immense sum: I have hold of him; so I say that he cannot deny it. For what will he say? Security has been entered into for a prosecution against your agent Apronius, in a matter in which all your fortunes are at stake—on the charge of having been in the habit of saying that you were his partner in the tenths. All men are waiting to see how anxious you will be about this, how you will endeavour to give men a favourable opinion of you and of your innocence. Will you here appoint as judges your physician, and your soothsayer, and your crier, or even that man whom you had in your train, in case there was any affair of importance, a judge like Cassius, Papirius Potamo, a severe man of the old equestrian school? Scandilius began to demand judges from the body of settlers; then Verres says that he will not entrust a trial in which his own character is at stake, to any one except his own people. The brokers think it a scandalous thing for a man to protest against, as unjust to himself, that form in which they transact their business. The praetor protests against the whole province as unjust to him.

Oh, unexampled impudence! Does he demand to be acquitted at Rome, who has decided in his own province that it is impossible that he should be acquitted? who thinks that money will have a greater influence over senators most carefully chosen, than fear will over three judges? But Scandilius says that he will not say a word before a judge like Artemidorus, and still he presses the matter on, and loads you with favourable conditions, if you choose to avail yourself of them. If you decide that, in the whole province of Sicily, no capable judge or recuperator can be found, he requires of you to refer the matter to Rome; and on this you exclaim that the man is a dishonest man, for demanding a trial in which your character is at stake to take place in a place where he knows that you are unpopular.

You say you will not send the case to Rome. You say that you will not appoint judges out of the body of settlers; you put forward your own retinue. Scandilius says that he shall abandon the whole affair for the present, and return at his own time. What do you say to that? what do you do? you compel Scandilius to do what? to prosecute the matter regularly? In a shameless manner you put an end to the long-expected trial of your character; you do not do that—what do you do, then?

Do you permit Apronius to select what judges he chooses out of your retinue? It is a scandalous thing that you should give one of the parties a power of selecting judges from that worthless crew, rather than give both a power of rejecting judges from a respectable class. You do neither of those things—what then? Is there anything more abominable that can be done? Yes; for he compels Scandilius to give and pay over that five thousand sesterces to Apronius. What neater thing could be done by a praetor desirous of a fair reputation,—one who was anxious to repel from himself all suspicion, and to deliver himself from infamy? He had been a common topic of conversation, of reproach, of abuse. A worthless and debauched man had been in the habit of saying that the praetor was his partner. The master had come before the courts, had come to trial; he, upright and innocent man that he was, had an opportunity, by punishing Apronius, of relieving himself from the most serious disgrace. What punishment does he devise? what penalty for Apronius? He compels Scandilius to pay to Apronius five thousand sesterces, as reward and wages for his unprecedented rascality, his audacity, and his proclamation of this wicked partnership.

What difference did it make, O most audacious man, whether you made this decree, or whether you yourself made that profession and declaration concerning yourself which Apronius was in the habit of making? The man whom, if there had been shame, yes, if there had even been any fear in you, you ought not to have let go without punishment, you could not allow to come off without a reward. You might see the truth in every case, O judges, from this single affair of Scandilius. First of all, that this charge about the partnership in the tenths was not cooked up at Rome, was not invented by the accuser; it was not (as we are accustomed sometimes to say in making a defence for a man) a domestic or back-stairs accusation; it was not originated in a time of your danger, but it was an old charge, bruited about long ago, when you were praetor, not made up at Rome by your enemies, but brought to Rome from the province.

At the same time his great favour to Apronius may be clearly seen; also the, I will not say confession, but the boast of Apronius, about him. Besides all this, you can rake as clearly proved this first, that, in his own province, he would not entrust a trim in which his reputation was at stake, to any one out of his own retinue. Is there any judge who has not been convinced, from the very beginning of my accusation respecting the collection of tenths, that he had made an attack on the property and fortunes of the cultivators of the soil? Who is there who did not at once decide, from what I then proved, that he had sold the tenths under a law quite novel, and, therefore, no law at all, contrary to the usage and established regulations of all his predecessors?

But even if I had not such judges as I have, such impartial, such careful, such conscientious judges, is there any one whatever who has not long ago formed his opinion and his judgment from the magnitude of the injuries done, the dishonesty of the decrees, the iniquity of the tribunals? Even although a man may be somewhat careless in judging,—somewhat indifferent to the laws, to his duty to the republic, to our allies and friends, what then? Can even such a man doubt of the dishonesty of that man, when he is aware that such vast gains were made,—such iniquitous compromises extorted by violence and terror?—when he knows that cities were compelled by violence and imperious commands, by the fear of scourges and death, to give such great rewards, not only to Apronius and to men like him, but even to the slaves of Venus?

But if any one is but little influenced by the injuries done to our allies,—if there be any one who is not moved by the flight, the calamities, the banishment, and the suicides of the cultivators of the soil; still I cannot doubt that the man who knows, both from the documents of the cities and the letter of Lucius Metellus, that Sicily has been laid waste and the farms deserted, must decide that it is quite impossible that any other than the severest judgment should be passed on that man. Will there be any one who can conceal from himself, or be indifferent to these facts? I have brought before you trials commenced respecting the partnership in the tenths, but prevented by that man from being brought to a decision. What is there that any one can possibly desire plainer than this? I have no doubt that I have satisfied you, O judges. But I will go further; not, indeed, in order that this may be proved more completely to your satisfaction than I feel sure that it already is, but that he may at last give over his impudence,—may cease at Last to believe that he can purchase these things which he himself was always ready to sell his good faith, his oath, truth, duty, and religion;—that his friends may cease to keep continually saying things which may be injury, a stain, and odium, and infamy to all of us.

But what friends are they? Alas, the order of senators! wretched, and unpopular, and detested through the fault and unworthiness of a few! That Alba Aemilius, sitting at the entrance of the market, should say openly that Verres had gained his cause,—that he had bought the judges, one for four hundred thousand sesterces, another for five, the one who who went cheapest, for three! And when he was answered that that was impossible; that many witnesses would give evidence, and besides, that I should not desert the cause,—“Though,” said he, “every one were to make every possible statement against him, still, unless the matter be brought home to him so evidently that no answer can be given, we have gained the cause.”

You say well, Alba. I will agree to your conditions. You think that conjecture avails nothing at a trial,—that suspicion avails nothing,—that the character of one's previous life avails nothing,—nor the evidence of virtuous men,—nor the authority or letters of cities. You demand evident proof I do not ask for judges like Cassius. I do not ask for the ancient impartiality of courts of justice. I do not, O judges, implore your good faith, your self-respect, your conscientiousness in giving judgment. I will take Alba for my judge; that man who is himself desirous of being considered an unprincipled buffoon: who by the buffoons has always been considered as a gladiator, rather than as a buffoon. I will bring forward such a case about the tenths that Alba shall confess that Verres, in the case of the corn, and in that of the property of the cultivators of the soil has been an open and undisguised robber.

He says that he sold the tenths of the Leontine district at a high price. I showed at the beginning that he ought not to be considered to have sold them at a high price' who in name indeed sold the tenths, but who in reality and by the terms of the sale, and through his law, and through his edict, and through the licentiousness of the collectors, left no tenths at all to the cultivators of the soil. I proved that also, that others had sold the tenths of the Leontine district and of other districts also, for a high price; and that they had sold them according to the law of Hiero; and that they sold them for even more than you had, and that then no cultivator had complained. Nor indeed was there anything of which any one could complain, when they were sold according to a law most equitably framed; nor did it ever make any difference to the cultivator at what price the tenths were sold. For it is not the case that, if they be sold at a high price, the cultivator owes more, if at a low price, less. As the crops are produced, so are the tenths sold. But it is for the interest of the cultivator, that his crops should be such that the tenths may be able to be sold at as high a price as possible. As long as the cultivator does not give more than a tenth, it is for his interest that the tenth should be as large as possible.

But, I imagine, you mean this to be the chief article of your defence, that you sold all the tenths at a high price, but the tenths of the Leontine district, which produces the most, for two hundred and sixteen thousand modii of wheat. If I prove that you could have sold them for a good deal more, but that you would not knock them down to those who were bidding against Apronius, and that you adjudged them to Apronius for much less than you might have adjudged them to others;—if I prove this, will even Alba, not only your oldest friend, out even your lover, be able to acquit you? I assert that a Roman knight, a man of the highest honour, Quintus Minucius, with others like himself, was willing to add to the tenths of the Leontine district not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousand modii of wheat, but thirty thousand modii of wheat to the tenths of one single district, and that he was not allowed to become the purchaser, that the matter might not escape the grasp of Apronius.