In C. Verrem

That fellow put on the tribunal Artemidorus Cornelius, the physician, Valerius, the crier, Tlepolemus, the painter, and judges of that sort; not one of whom was a Roman citizen, but Greek robbers of temples, long since infamous, and now all Corneliuses. The Agyrians saw that whatever charge Apronius brought before whose judges, he would very easily prove; but they preferred to be convicted, and so add to his unpopularity and infamy, rather than accede to his conditions and terms. They asked what formula would be given to the judges on which to try them? He answered, “If it appeared that they had acted contrary to the edict,” on which formula he said that he should pronounce judgment. They preferred trying the question according to a most unjust formula, and with most profligate judges, rather than come to any settlement with him of their own accord. He sent Timarchides privately to them, to warn them, if they were wise, to settle the matter. They refused. “What, then, will you do? Do you prefer to be convicted each of you in a penalty of fifty thousand sesterces?” They said they did. Then he said out loud, in the hearing of every one, “Whoever is condemned, shall be beaten to death with rods.” On this they began with tears to beg and entreat him to be allowed to give up their cornfields, and all their produce, and their allotments, when stripped of everything, to Apronius, and to depart themselves without insult and annoyance.

These were the terms, O judges, on which Verres sold the tenths. Hortensius may say, if he pleases, that Verres sold them at a high price. This was the condition of the cultivators of the soil while that man was praetor; that they thought themselves exceedingly well off, if they might give up their fields when stripped of everything to Apronius, for they wished to escaped the many crosses which were set before their eyes. Whatever Apronius had declared to be due, that they were forced to give, according to the edict. Suppose he declared more was due than the land produced? Just so. How could that be? The magistrates were bound, according to his own edict, to compel the payment. Well, but the cultivators could recover. Yes, but Artemidorus was the judge. What next? What happened if the cultivator had given less than Apronius had demanded? A prosecution of the cultivator to recover a fourfold penalty. Before judges taken from what body? From that admirable retinue of most honourable men in attendance on the praetor. What more? I say that you returned less than the proper number of acres: select judges for the matter which is to be tried, namely, your violation of the edict. Out of what class? Out of the same retinue. What will be the end of it? If you are convicted, (and what doubt can there be about a conviction with those judges?) you must be beaten to death with rods. When these are the rules, these the conditions, will there be any one so foolish as to think that what was sold were the tenths? Who believes that nine parts were left to the cultivator? Who does not perceive that that fellow considered as his own gain and plunder the property and possessions and fortunes of the cultivators? From fear of the gods the Agyrians said that they would do what they were commanded to.

Listen now to what his orders were; and conceal, if you can, that you are aware of what all Sicily well knew, that the praetor himself was the farmer of the tenths, or rather the lord and sovereign of all the allotments in the province. He orders the Agyrians to take the tenths themselves in the name of their city, and to give a compliment to Apronius. If he had bought them at a high price, since you are a man who inquired into the proper price with great diligence, who, as you say, sold them at a high price, why do you think that a compliment ought to be added as a present to the purchaser? Be it so; you did think so. Why did you order them to add it? What is the meaning; of taking and appropriating money, for which the law has a hold on you, if this is not it,—I mean the compelling men by force and despotic power against their will to give a compliment to another, that is to say, to give him money?

Well, what comes next? If they were ordered to give some small compliment to Apronius, the delight of the praetor's life, suppose that it was given to Apronius, if it seems to you the compliment to Apronius, and not the plunder of the praetor. You order them to take the tenths; to give Apronius a compliment,—thirty-three thousand medimni of wheat. What is this? One city is compelled by the command of the praetor to give to the Roman people out of one district almost food enough to support it for a month. Did you sell the tenths at a high price, when such a compliment was given to the collector? In truth, if you had inquired carefully into the proper price, then when you were selling them, they would rather have given ten thousand medimni more then, than six hundred thousand sesterces afterwards. It seems a great booty. Listen to what follows, and remark it carefully, so as to be the less surprised that the Sicilians, being compelled by their necessity, entreated aid from their patrons, from the consuls, from the senate, from the laws, from the tribunals.

To pay Apronius for testing the wheat which was given to him, Verres orders the Agyrians to pay Apronius three sesterces for every medimnus. What is this? When such a quantity of corn has been extorted and exacted under the name of a compliment, is money to be exacted besides for testing the corn? Or could, not only Apronius, but any one, if corn was to be served out to the army, disapprove of the Sicilian corn, which Verres might have measured on the threshing-floor, if he had liked? That vast quantity of corn is given and extorted at your command. That is not enough. Money is demanded besides. It is paid. That is too little. For the tenths of barley more money is extorted. You order thirty thousand sesterces to be paid. And so from one city there are extorted by force, by threats, by the despotic power and injustice of the praetor thirty-three thousand medimni of wheat, and besides that, sixty thousand sesterces! Are these things obscure? Or, even if all the world wished it, can those things be obscure which you did openly, which you ordered in open court, which you extorted when every one was looking on? concerning which matters the magistrates and five chief men of Agyrium, whom you summoned from their homes for the sake of your own gain, reported your acts and commands to their own senate at home; and that report, according to their laws, was recorded in the public registers, and the ambassadors of the Agyrians, most noble men, are at Rome, and have deposed to these facts in evidence.

Examine the public letters of the Agyrians; after that the public testimony of the city. Read the public letters. [The public letters are read.] Read the public evidence. [The public evidence is read.] You have remarked in this evidence, O judges, that Apollodorus, whose surname is Pyragrus, the chief man of his city, have his evidence with tears, and said that since the name of the Roman people had been heard by and known to the Sicilians, the Agyrians had never either said or done anything contrary to the interests of even the meanest of the Roman citizens; but that now they are compelled by great injuries, and great suffering to give evidence in a public manner against a praetor of the Roman people. You cannot, in truth. O Verres, invalidate the evidence of this one city by your defence; so great a weight is there in the fidelity of these men, such great indignation is there at their injuries, such great conscientiousness is there in the way in which they gave their evidence. But it is not one city alone, but every city, that now being crushed by similar distresses pursues you with deputations and public evidence.

Let us now, in regular order, proceed to see in what way the city of Herbita, an honourable and formerly a wealthy city, was harassed and plundered by him. A city of what sort of men? Of excellent agriculturists, men most remote from courts of law, from tribunals, and from disputes; whom you, O most profligate of men, ought to have spared, whose interests you ought to have consulted, the whole race of whom you ought most carefully to have preserved. In the first year of your praetorship the tenths of that district were sold for eighteen thousand [*](Orellius considers that all the figures and measures in this and the next chapter are in a state of hopeless corruption and confusion; and they are certainly not very easily reconciled with each other. The effect of the oration in general is not weakened, but we must not suppose that we have the exact statements which were addressed by Cicero to the Judges.) medimni of wheat. When Atidius, who was also his servant in the matter of tenths, had purchased them, and when he had come to Herbita with the title of' prefect, attended by the slaves of Verres, and when a place where he might lodge had been assigned him by the public act of the city, the people of Herbita are compelled to give him as a profit thirty-seven thousand modii of wheat, when the tenths of the wheat had been sold at eighteen thousand. And they are compelled to give this vast quantity of wheat in the name of their city, since the private cultivators of the soil had already fled from their lands, having been plundered and driven away by the injuries of the collectors.

In the second year, when Apronius had bought the tenths of wheat for twenty-five thousand modii, and when he himself had come to Herbita with his whole force and his whole band of robbers, the people was compelled to give him in the name of the city a present of twenty-six thousand modii of wheat, and a further gift of two thousand sesterces. I am not quite sure about this further gift, whether it was not given to Apronius himself as wages for his trouble, and a reward for his impudence. But concerning such an immense quantity of wheat, who can doubt that it came to that robber of corn, Verres, just as the corn of Agyrium did? But in the third year he adopted in this district the custom of sovereigns. They say that the barbarian kings of the Persians and Syrians are accustomed to have several wives, and to give to these wives cities in this fashion:—that this city is to dress the woman's waist, that one to dress her neck, that to dress her hair; and so they have whole nations not only privy to their lusts, but also assistants in it.

Learn that the licentiousness and lust of that man who thought himself king of the Sicilians, was much the same. The name of the wife of Aeschrio, a Syracusan, is Pippa, whose name has been made notorious over all Sicily by that man's profligacy, and many verses were inscribed on the praetor's tribunal, and over the praetor's head, about that woman. This Aeschrio, the imaginary husband of Pippa, is appointed as a new farmer of the tenths of Herbita. When the men of Herbita saw that if the business got into Aeschrio's hands they should be plundered at the will of a most dissolute woman, they did against him as far as they thought that they could go. Aeschrio bid on, for he was not afraid that, while Verres was praetor, the woman, who would be really the farmer, would ever be allowed to lose by it. The tenths are knocked down to him at thirty-five thousand medimni, nearly half as much again as they had fetched the preceding year. The cultivators were utterly destroyed, and so much the more because in the preceding year they had been drained dry, and almost ruined. He was aware that they had been sold at so high a price, that more could not be squeezed out of the people; so he deducts from the sum total three thousand six hundred medimni, and enters on the registers thirty-one thousand four hundred.

Docimus had bought the tenths of barley belonging to the same district. This Docimus is the man who had brought to Verres Tertia, the daughter of Isidorus the actor, having taken her from a Rhodian flute-player. The influence of this woman Tertia was greater with him than that of Pippa, or of all the other women, and I had almost said, was as great in his Sicilian praetorship as that of Chelidon had been in his city praetorship. There come to Herbita the two rivals of the praetor, not likely to be troublesome to him, infamous agents of most abandoned women. They begin to demand, to beg, to threaten; but though they wished it, they were not able to imitate Apronius. The Sicilians were not so much afraid of Sicilians; still, as they put forth false accusations in every possible way, the Herbitenses undertake to appear in court at Syracuse. When they had arrived there, they are compelled to give to Aeschrio—that is, to Pippa—as much as had been deducted from the original purchase-money, three thousand six hundred modii of wheat. He was not willing to give to the woman who was really the farmer too much profits out of the tenths, lest in that case she should transfer her attention from her nocturnal gains to the farming of the tributes.

The people of Herbita thought the matter was settled, when that man added,—“And what are you going to give out of the barley to my little friend Docimus? What are your intentions?” He transacted all this business, O judges, in his chamber, and in his bed. They said that they had no commission to give anything: “I do not hear you; pay him fifteen thousand sesterces.” What were the wretched men to do I or how could they refuse? especially when they saw the traces of the woman who was the collector fresh in the bed, by which they understood that he had been inflamed to persevere in his demand. And so one city of our allies and friends was made tributary of two most debauched women while Verres was praetor. And I now assert that that quantity of corn and those sums of money were given by the people of Herbita to the collectors in the name of the city. And yet by all that corn and all that money they could not deliver their fellow citizens from the injuries of the collectors. For after the property of the cultivators was destroyed and carried off, bribes were still to be given to the collectors to induce them to depart at length from their lands and from their cities.

And so when Philinus of Herbita, a man eloquent and prudent, and noble in his own city, spoke in public of the distress of the cultivators, and of their flight, and of the scanty numbers that were left behind, you remarked, O judges, the groans of the Roman people, a great crowd of whom has always been present at this cause. And concerning the scanty number of the cultivators I will speak at another time. But at this moment a topic, which I had almost passed over, must not be altogether forgotten. For, in the name of the immortal gods! how will you, I will not say tolerate, but how will you bear even to hear of the sums which Verres subtracted from the sum total?

Up to this time there has been one man only since the first foundation of Rome, (and may the immortal gods grant that there may never be another,) to whom the republic wholly committed herself, being compelled by the necessities of the times and domestic misfortunes. He had such power, that without his consent no one could preserve either his property, or his liberty, or his life. He had such courage in his audacity, that he was not afraid to say in the public assembly, when he was selling the property of Roman citizens, that he was selling his own booty. All his actions we not only still maintain, but out of fear of greater inconveniences and calamities, we defend them by the public authority. One decree alone of his has been remodeled by a resolution of the senate, and a decree has been passed, that these men, from the sum total of whose debts he had made a deduction, should pay the money into the treasury. The senate laid down this principle,—that even he to whom they had entrusted everything had not power to diminish the total amount of revenue acquired and procured by the valour of the Roman people.

The conscript fathers decided that he had no power to remit even to the bravest men any portion of their debts to the state. And shall the senators decide that you have lawfully remitted any to a most profligate woman? The man, concerning whom the Roman people had established a law that his absolute will should be the law to the Roman people, still is found fault with in this one particular, out of reverence for their ancient laws. Did you, who were liable to almost every law, think that your lust and caprice was to be a law to you? He is blamed for remitting a part of that money which he himself had acquired. Shall you be pardoned who have remitted part of the revenue due to the Roman people?

And in this description of boldness he proceeded even much more shamelessly with respect to the tenths of the district of Segesta; for when he had knocked them down to this same Docimus, for five thousand modii of wheat, and had added as an extra present fifteen thousand sesterces, he compelled the people of Segesta to take them of Docimus at the same price in the name of their city; and you shall have this proved by the public testimony of the Segestans. Read the public testimony [The public testimony is read.] You have heard at what price the city took the tenths from Docimus,—at five thousand modii of wheat, and an extra gift. Learn now at what price he entered them in his accounts as having been sold. [The law respecting the sale of tithes, Caius Verres being the praetor, is read.] You see that in this item three thousand bushels of wheat are deducted from the sum total, and when he had taken all this from the food of the Roman people, from the sinews of the revenue, from the blood of the treasury, he gave it to Tertia the actress? Shall I call it rather an impudent action, to extort from allies of the state, or an infamous one to give it to a prostitute? or a wicked one to take it away from the Roman people, or an audacious one to make false entries in the public accounts? Can any influence or any bribery deliver you from the severity of these judges? And if it should deliver you, do you not still see that the things which I am mentioning belong to another count of the prosecution, and to the action for peculation?

Therefore I will reserve the whole of that class of offences, and return to the charge respecting the corn and the tenths which I had begun to speak of. While this man was laying waste the largest and most fertile districts by his own agency, that is to say by Apronius, that second Verres, he had others whom he could send, like hounds, among the lesser cities, worthless and infamous men, to whom he compelled the citizens to give either corn or money in the name of their city. There is a man called Aulus Valentius in Sicily, an interpreter, whom Verres used to employ not only as an interpreter of the Greek language, but also in his robberies and other crimes. This interpreter, an insignificant and needy man, becomes on a sudden a farmer of tenths. He purchases the tenths of the territory of Lipara, a poor and barren district, for six hundred medimni of wheat. The people of Lipara are convoked: they are compelled to take the tenths, and to pay Valentius thirty thousand sesterces as profit. O ye immortal gods! which argument will you take for your defence; that you sold the tenths for so much less than you might have done,—that the city immediately, of its own accord, added to the six hundred medimni thirty thousand sesterces as a compliment, that is to say, two thousand medimni of wheat? or that, after you had sold the tenths at a high price, you still extorted this money from the people of Lipara against their will?

But why do I ask of you what defence you are going to employ, instead of rather asking the city itself what you have done. Read the public testimony of the Liparans, and after that read how the money was given to Valentius. [The public testimony is read.] [The statement how the money was paid, extracted out of the public accounts, is read.] Was even this little state, so far removed out of your reach and out of your sight, separated from Sicily, placed on a barren and uncultivated island, turned as a sort of crown to all your other iniquities, into a source of plunder and profit to you in this matter of corn? You had given the whole island to one of your companions as a trifling present, and still were these profits from corn exacted from it as from the inland states? And therefore the men who for so many years, before you came as praetor, were in the habit of ransoming their lands from the pirates, now had a price set on themselves, and were compelled to ransom themselves from you.

What more need I say? Was not more extorted, under the name of a compliment, from the people of Tissa, a very small and poor city, but inhabited by very hard-working agriculturists and most frugal men, than the whole crop of corn which they had extracted from their land? Among them you sent as farmer Diognotus, a slave of Venus, a new class of collector altogether. Why, with such a precedent as this, are not the public slaves at Rome also entrusted with the revenues? In the second year of your praetorship the Tissans are compelled against their will to give twenty-one thousand sesterces as a compliment. In the third year they were compelled to give thirty thousand medimni of wheat to Diognotus, a slave of Venus, as a compliment! This Diognotus, who is making such vast profits out of the public revenues, has no deputy, no peculium at all. Doubt now, if you can, whether this Venereal officer of Verres received such an immense quantity of corn for himself, or exacted it for his master.

And learn this also from the public testimony of the Tissans. [The public testimony of the Tissans is read.] Is it only obscurely, O judges, that the praetor himself is the farmer, when his officers exact corn from the cities, levy money on them, take something more as a compliment for themselves than they are to pay over to the Roman people under the name of tenths? This was your idea of equity in your command—this was your idea of the dignity of the praetor, to make the slaves of Venus the lords of the Sicilian people. This was the line drawn, these were the distinctions of rank, while you were the praetor, that the cultivators of the soil were to be considered in the class of slaves, the slaves in the light of farmers of the revenue.

What more shall I say? Were not the wretched people of Amestratus, after such vast tenths had been imposed upon them, that they had nothing left for themselves, still compelled to pay money besides? The tenths are knocked down to Marcus Caesius in the presence of deputies from Amestratus and Heraclius, one of their deputies, is compelled at once to pay twenty-two thousand sesterces. What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this booty? of this violence? of this plundering of the allies? If Heraclius had been commissioned by his senate to purchase the tenths, he would have purchased them; if he was not, how could he pay money of his own accord? He reports to his fellow citizens that he has paid Caesius this money. Learn his report from his letters.