In C. Verrem

for when you were demanding of the cities money for corn, whence was the corn to be procured for you to send to Rome, if you had it not all collected and locked up? Therefore, in the affair of that corn, the first profit of all was that of the corn itself, which had been taken by violence from the cultivators; the next profit was because that very corn which had been procured by you during your three years, you sold not once, but twice; not for one payment, but for two, though it was one and the same lot of corn; once to the cities, for fifteen sesterces a medimnus, a second time to the Roman people, from whom you got eighteen sesterces a medimus for the very same corn.

But perhaps you approved besides of the corn of the Centuripans, of the Agrigentines, and of some others, and paid money to these nations. There may be some cities in that number whose corn you were unwilling to object to. What then? Was all the money that was owed for corn paid to these cities? Find me one—not one people, but one cultivator. See, seek, look around, if perchance there is any single man in that province in which you were governor for three years, who does not wish you to be ruined. Produce me one, I say, out of all those cultivators who contributed money even to raise a statue to you, who will say that everything that was due for corn was paid. I pledge myself, O judges, that none will say so.

Out of all the money which it was your duty to pay to the cultivators, you were in the habit of making deductions on certain pretexts; first of all for the examination, and for the difference in the exchanges; secondly, for some stealing money or other. All these names, O judges, do not belong to any legal demand, but to the most infamous robberies. For what difference of exchange can there be when all use one kind of money? And what is sealing money How has this name got introduced into the accounts of a magistrate? how came it to be connected with the public money? For the third description of deduction was such as if it were not only lawful, but even proper; and not only proper, but absolutely necessary. Two fiftieths were deducted from the entire sum in the name of the clerk. Who gave you leave to do this?—what law? what authority of the senate? Moreover where was the justice of your clerk taking such a sum, whether it was taken from the property of the cultivators, or from the revenues of the Roman people?

For if that sum can he deducted without injury to the cultivators of the soil, let the Roman people have it, especially in the existing difficulties of the treasury; but if the Roman people intended it to be paid to the cultivators, and if it is just that it should be, then shall your officer, hired at small wages paid by the people, plunder the property of the cultivators? And shall Hortensius excite against me in this cause the whole body of clerks? and shall he say that their interests are undermined by me, and their lights opposed? as if this were allowed to the clerks by any precedent or by any right. Why should I go back to old times? or why should I make mention of those clerks, who, it is evident, were most upright and conscientious men? It does not escape my observation, O judges, that old examples are now listened to and considered as imaginary fables I will go only to the present wretched and profligate time. You, O Hortensius, have lately been quaestor. You can say what your clerks did; I say this of mine; when, in that same Sicily, I was paying the cities money for their corn, and had with me two most economical men as clerks, Lucius Manilius and Lucius Sergius, then I say that not only these two fiftieths were not deducted, but that not one single coin was deducted from any one. I would say that all the credit of this was to be attributed to me, O judges, if they had ever asked this of me, if they had ever thought of it.

For why should a clerk make this deduction, and not rather the muleteer who brought the corn down? or the courier, by whose arrival they heard of its coming and made the demand? or the crier, who ordered them to appear? or the lictor and the slave of Venus, who carried the money? What part of the business or what seasonable assistance can a scrivener pretend to, that, I will not say such high wages should be given him, but, that a division of such a large sum should take place with him? Oh they are a very honourable body of men;—who denies it? or what has that to do with this business? But they are an honourable body, because to their integrity are entrusted the public accounts and the safety of the magistrates. Ask, therefore, of those scriveners who are worthy of their body, masters of households, virtuous and honourable men, what is the meaning of those fiftieths? In a moment you will all clearly see that the whole affair is unprecedented and scandalous.

Bring me back to those scriveners, if you please; do not get together those men who when with a little money scraped together from the presents of spendthrifts and the gratuities to actors, they have bought themselves a place in some decury, [*](These decuries were colleges, or guilds, in which the different bodies of inferior officers, librarians, clerks, lictors, accensi, nomenclators, &c were enrolled.) think that they have mounted from the first class of hissed buffoons into the second class of the citizens. Those scriveners I will have as arbitrators in this business between you and me, men who are indignant that those other fellows should be scriveners at ale Although, when we see that there are many unfit men in that order, an order which is held out as a reward for industry and good conduct, are we to wonder that there are some base men in that order also, a place in which any one can purchase for money? When you confess that your clerk, with your leave, took thirteen hundred thousand sesterces of the public money, do you think that you have any defence left? that any one can endure this? Do you think that even any one of those who are at this moment your own advocates can listen to this with equanimity? Do you think that, in the same city in which an action was brought against Caius Cato, [*](Caius Cato was the grandson of Marcus Cato the censor, and nephew of the younger Scipio Africanus; he had been praetor of Sicily, but was convicted of having received eighteen thousand sesterces illegally.) a most illustrious man, a man of consular rank, to recover a sum of eighteen thousand sesterces; in that same city it could be permitted to your clerk to carry off at one swoop thirteen hundred thousand sesterces?

Here is where that golden ring came from, with which you presented him in the public assembly; a gift which was an act of such extraordinary impudence that it seemed novel to all the Sicilians, and to me incredible. For our generals, after a defeat of the enemy, after some splendid success, have often presented their secretaries with golden rings in a public assembly; but you, for what exploit, for the defeat of what enemy did you dare to summon an assembly for the purpose of making this present? Nor did you only present your clerk with a ring, but you also presented a man of great bravery, a man very unlike yourself, Quintus Rubrius, a man of eminent virtue, and dignity, and riches, with a crown, with horse trappings, and a chain; and also Marcus Cossutius, a most conscientious and honourable man, and Marcus Castritius, a man of the greatest wealth, and ability, and influence.

What was the meaning of these presents made to these three Roman citizens? Besides that, you gave presents also to some of the most powerful and noble of the Sicilians, who have not, as you hoped, been the more slow to come forward, but have only come with more dignity to give their evidence in this trial of yours. Where did all these presents come from? from the spoils of what enemy? gained in what victory? Of what booty or trophies do they make a part? Is it because while you were praetor, a most beautiful fleet, the bulwark of Sicily, the defence of the province, was burnt [*](This has been mentioned before, owing to the way in which Verres had disabled the fleet for his private gain, excusing towns from providing ships who were inclined to pay for the relaxation, and discharging too all the sailors who chose to buy their discharges, it was so powerless that a small squadron of pirates sailed into the harbour of Syracuse and burnt it. Afterwards, a single pirate ship was taken, the officers of which purchased their pardon of Verres, who, not daring to avow it, as the people clamoured for their execution, brought on the scaffold the captains of those Roman ships which had been burnt, and officers who he feared might hereafter bear witness against him, with their heads muffled up so that they could not be recognised, and had them executed as the pirates.) by the hands of pirates arriving in a few light galleys? or because the territory of Syracuse was laid waste by the conflagrations of the banditti while you were praetor? or because the forum of the Syracuse overflowed with the blood of the captains? or because a piratical galley sailed about in the harbour of Syracuse? I can find no reason which I can imagine for your having fallen into such madness, unless indeed your object was to prevent men from ever forgetting the disasters of your administration.