In C. Verrem

A clerk was presented with a golden ring, and an assembly was convoked to witness that presentation. What must have been your face when you saw in the assembly those men out of whose property that golden ring was provided for the present; who themselves had laid aside their golden rings, and had taken them off from their children, in order that your clerk might have the means to support your liberality and kindness? Moreover, what was the preface to this present? Was it the old one used by the generals?—“Since in battle, in war, in military affairs, you....” There never was even any mention of such matters while you were praetor. Was it this, “Since you have never failed me in any act of covetousness, or in any baseness, and since you have been concerned with me in all my wicked actions, both during my lieutenancy, and my praetorship, and here in Sicily; on account of all these things, since I have already made you rich, I now present you with this golden ring?” This would have been the truth. For that golden ring given by you does not prove he was a brave man, but only a rich one. As we should judge that same ring, if given by some one else, to have evidence of virtue when given by you, we consider it only an accompaniment to money.

I have spoken, O judges, of the corn collected as tenths; I have spoken of that which was purchased; the last, the only remaining topic, is the valuation of the corn, which ought to have weight with every one, both from the vastness of the sum involved, and from the description of the injustice done; and more than either, because against this charge he is provided, not with some ingenious defence, but with a most scandalous confession of it. For though it was lawful for him, both by a decree of the senate, and also by the laws, to take corn and lay it up in the granaries, and though the senate had valued that corn at four sesterces for a modius of wheat, two for one of barley, Verres, having first added to the quantity of wheat, valued each modius of wheat with the cultivators at three denarii. [*](A denarius was about eight pence half-penny; a sestertius only fraction over two-pence.) My charge is not this, O Hortensius; do not you think about this; I know that many virtuous, and brave, and incorruptible men, have often valued, both with the cultivators of the soil and with cities, the corn which ought to have been taken and laid up in the granary, and have taken money instead of corn; I know what is accustomed to be done; I know what is lawful to be done; nothing which has been previously the custom of virtuous men is found fault with ill the conduct of Verres.

This is what I find fault with, that, when a modius of wheat in Sicily cost two sesterces, as his letter which was sent to you declares, or at most, three, as has also already been made clear from all the evidence and all the accounts of the cultivators, he exacted from the cultivators three denarii for every modius of wheat. This is the charge; I wish you to understand, that my accusation turns not on the fact of his having valued the corn, nor even of his having valued it at three denarii but on that of his having increased the quantity of corn, and consequently the amount of the valuation. In truth this valuation originated, O judges, at first not in the convenience of the praetors or consuls, but in the advantage to the cultivators and the cities. For originally, no one was so impudent as to demand money when it was corn that was due; certainly this proceeded in the first instance from the cultivator or from the city which was required to furnish corn; when they had either sold the corn, or wished to keep it, or were not willing to carry it to that place where it was required to be delivered, they begged as a kindness and a favour, that they might be allowed, instead of the corn, to give the value of the corn. From such a commencement as this, and from the liberality and accommodating spirit of the magistrates the custom of valuations was introduced.

More covetous, magistrates succeeded; who, in their avarice, devised not only a plan for their own gain, but also a way of escape, and a plea for their defence. They adopted a custom of always requiring corn to be delivered at the most remote and inconvenient places, in order that, through the difficulty of carriage, the cultivators might be more easily brought to the valuation which they wished. In a case of this kind it is easier to form one's opinion, than to make out a case for blame; because we can think the man who does this avaricious, but we cannot easily make out a charge against him; because it appears that we must grant this to our magistrates, that they may have power to receive the corn in any place they choose; therefore this is what many perhaps have done, not, however, so many out that those whom we recollect, or whom we have heard of as the most upright magistrates, have declined to do it.

I ask of you now, O Hortensius, with which of these classes you are going to compare the conduct of Verres? With those, I suppose, who, influenced by their own kindness, have granted, as a favour and as a convenience to the cities, permission to give money instead of corn. And so I suppose the cultivators begged of him, that, as they could not sell a modius of wheat for three sesterces, they may be allowed to pay three denarii instead of each modius. Or, since you do not dare to say this, will you take refuge in that assertion, that, being influenced by the difficulty of carriage, they preferred to give three denarii? Of what carriage? Wishing not to have to carry it from what place to what place? from Philomelium to Ephesus? I see what is the difference between the price of corn at different places; I see too how many days' journey it is; I see that it is for the advantage of the Philomelians rather to pay in Phrygia the price which corn bears in Ephesus, than to carry it to Ephesus, or to send both money and agents to Ephesus to buy corn.

But what can there be like that in Sicily? Enna is a completely inland town. Compel (that is the utmost stretch of your authority) the people of Enna to deliver their corn at the waterside; they will take it to Phintia, or to Halesa, or to Catina, places all very distant from one another, the same day that you issue the order; though there is not even need of any carriage at all; for all this profit of the valuation, O judges, arises from the variety in the price of corn. For a magistrate in a province can manage this,—namely, to receive it where it is dearest. And therefore that is the way valuations are managed in Asia and in Spain, and in those provinces in which corn is not everywhere the same price. But in Sicily what difference did it make to any one in what place he delivered it? for he had not to carry it; and wherever he was ordered to carry it, there he might buy the same quantity of corn which he sold at home.

Wherefore, if, O Hortensius, you wish to show that anything, in the matter of the valuation, was done by him like what has been done by others, you must show that at any place in Sicily, while Verres was praetor, a modius of wheat ever cost three denarii. See what a defence I have opened to you; how unjust to our allies, how far removed from the good of the republic, how utterly foreign to the intention and meaning of the law. Do you, when I am prepared to deliver you corn on my own farm, in my own city,—in the very place, in short, in which you are, in which you live, in which you manage all your business and conduct the affairs of the province,—do you, I say, select for me some remote and desert corner of the island? Do you bid me deliver it there, whither it is very inconvenient to carry it? where I cannot purchase it?

It is a shameful action, O judges, intolerable, permitted to no one by law, but perhaps not yet punished in any instance. Still this very thing, which I say ought not to be endured, I grant to you, O Verres; I make you a present of it. If in any place of that province corn was at the price at which he valued it, then I think that this charge ought not to have any weight against him. But when it was fetching two sesterces, or even three at the outside, in any district of the province which you choose to name, you exacted twelve. If there cannot be any dispute between you and me either about the price of corn, or about your valuation, why are you sitting there? What are you waiting for? What will you say in your defence? Does money appear to have been appropriated by you contrary to the laws, contrary to the interests of the republic, to the great injury of our allies? Or will you say in your defence, that all this has been done lawfully, regularly, in a manner advantageous to the republic, without injury to any one?