In C. Verrem

However those who were left behind displayed a good deal of courage. Although they were few in numbers, still they cried out, that whatever might be the event, they were willing to fight; and they preferred losing by the sword the little life and strength that hunger had left them. And if Cleomenes had not run away so long before, there would have been some means of making resistance, for that ship was the only one with a deck, and was large enough to have been a bulwark to the rest, and if it had been engaged in battle with the pirates, it would have looked like a city among those piratical galleys; but at that time the sailors being helpless, and deserted by their commander and prefect of the fleet, began of necessity to hold the same course that he had held.

Accordingly they all sailed towards Elorum, as Cleomenes had done; but they indeed were not so much flying from the attack of the pirates as following their commander. Then as each was last in flight, he was first in danger, for the pirates came upon the last ships first, and so the Haluntian vessel is taken first, which was commanded by an Haluntian of noble birth, Philarchus by name, whom the Locrians afterwards ransomed at the public expense from those pirates, and from whom, on his oath, you at the former pleading learnt the whole of the circumstances and their cause. The Apollonian vessel is taken next, and Anthropinus, its captain, is slain.

While all this was going on, in the meantime Cleomenes had already arrived at Elorum, already he had hastened on land from the ship, and had left the quadrireme tossing about in the surf. The rest of the captains of ships, when the commander-in-chief had landed, as they had no possible means either of resisting or of escaping by sea, ran their ships ashore at Elorum, and followed Cleomenes. Then Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, being suddenly victorious, beyond all his hopes, not through any valour of his own, but owing to the avarice and worthlessness of Verres, as soon as evening came on, ordered a most beautiful fleet belonging to the Roman people, having been driven on shore and abandoned, to be set fire to and burnt.

O what a miserable and bitter time for the province of Sicily! O what an event, calamitous and fatal to many innocent people! O what unexampled worthlessness and infamy of that man! On one and the same night, the praetor was burning with the flame of the most disgraceful love, a fleet of the Roman people with the fire of pirates. It was a stormy night when the news of this terrible disaster was brought to Syracuse—men run to the praetor's house, to which his women had conducted him back a little while before from his splendid banquet, with songs and music. Cleomenes, although it was night, still does not dare to show himself in public. He shuts himself up in his house, but his wife was not there to console her husband in his misfortunes.

But the discipline of this noble commander-in-chief was so strict in his own house, that though the event was so important, the news so serious, still no one could be admitted; no one dared either to wake him if asleep, or to address him if awake. But now, when the affair had become known to everybody, a vast multitude was collecting in every part of the city; for the arrival of the pirates was not given notice of, as had formerly been the custom, by a fire raised on a watchtower, or a hill, but both the disaster that had already been sustained, and the danger that was impending, were notified by the conflagration of the fleet itself. When the praetor was inquired for, and when it was plain that no one had told him the news, a rush of people towards his house takes place with great impetuosity and loud cries.

Then, he himself, being roused, comes forth; he hears the whole news from Timarchides; he takes his military cloak. It was now nearly dawn. He comes forth into the middle of the crowd, bewildered with wine, and sleep, and debauchery. He is received by all with such a shout that it seemed to bring before his eyes a resemblance to the dangers of Lampsacus. [*](See the first book of this second pleading, c. 26.) But this present appeared greater than that, because, though both the mobs hated him equally, the numbers here were much greater. People began to talk to one another of his tent on the shore, of his flagitious banquets; the names of his women were called out by the crowd; men asked him openly where he had been, and what he had been doing for so many days together, during which no one had seen him. Then they demanded Cleomenes, who had been appointed commander-in-chief by him; and nothing was ever nearer happening than the transference of the precedent of Utica in the case of Hadrian [*](See the 27th chapter of the first book of the second pleading against Verres.) to Syracuse; so that two graves of two most infamous governors would have been contained in two provinces. However, regard was had by the multitude to the time, regard was had to the impending danger, regard was had, too, to their common dignity and character, because the body of settlers of Roman citizens at Syracuse is such as to be considered the most dignified body, not only in that province, but even in this republic.

They all encourage one another, while he is still half asleep and stupefied; they take arms; they fill the whole forum and the island, which is a considerable portion of the whole city. The pirates having remained at Elorum that single night, left our ships still smoking, and began to sail to Syracuse; for as they, forsooth, had often heard that nothing could be finer than the fortifications and harbour of Syracuse, they had made up their minds that if they did not see them while Verres was praetor, they should never see them at all.

And first of all they came to those summer quarters of the praetor, landing at that very part of the shore where he, having pitched his tents, had set up his camp of luxury while all this was going on. But when they found the place empty, and understood that the praetor had removed his quarters from that place, they immediately, without any fear, began to penetrate to the harbour itself. When I say into the harbour, O judges, (for I must explain myself carefully for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the place,) I mean that the pirates came into the city, and into the most central parts of the city; for that town is not closed in by the harbour, but the harbour itself is surrounded and closed in by the town; so that it is not only the innermost walls that are washed by the sea, but the harbour, if I may so say, flows into the very bosom of the city.

Here, while you were praetor, Heracleo, the captain of the pirates, with four small galleys, sailed about at his pleasure. O ye immortal gods! a piratical galley, while the representative of the Roman people, its name and its forces were all in Syracuse, came up to the very forum, and to all the quays of the city. Those most glorious fleets of the Carthaginians, when they were at the very height of their naval power, though they often made the attempt in many wars, were never able to advance so far. Even the naval glory of the Roman people, invincible as it was till your praetorship, in all the Punic and Sicilian wars never penetrated so far. The situation of the place is such that the Syracusans usually saw their enemies armed and victorious within their walls, in the city, and in the forum, before they saw any enemy's ship in their harbour.

Here, while you were praetor, galleys of pirates sailed about, where previously the only fleet that had ever entered in the history of the world, was the Athenian fleet of three hundred ships, which forced its way in by its weight and its numbers; and that fleet was in that very harbour defeated and destroyed, owing to the natural character of the place and harbour. Here first was the power of that splendid city defeated, weakened, and impaired. In this harbour, shipwreck was made of the nobleness and dominion and glory of Athens. [*](See the seventh book of Thucydides.) Did a pirate penetrate to that part of the city which he could not approach without leaving a great part of the city not only on his flanks but in his rear? He passed by the whole island, which is at Syracuse a very considerable part of the city, having its own distinct name, and separate walls; in which part, as I said before, our ancestors forbade any Syracusan to dwell, because they knew that the harbour would be in the power of whatever people were occupying that district of the city.

And how did he wander through it? He threw down around him the roots of the wild palms which he had found in our ships, in order that all men might become acquainted with the dishonesty of Verres, and the disaster of Sicily. O that Sicilian soldiers, children of those cultivators of the soil whose fathers produced such crops of corn by their labour that they were able to supply the Roman people and the whole of Italy,—that they, born in the island of Ceres, where corn is said to have been first discovered, should have been driven to use such food as their ancestors, by the discovery of corn, had delivered all other nations from! While you were praetor the Sicilian soldiers were fed on the roots of wild palms, pirates on Sicilian corn.