2. Son of the preceding, was born about B. C. 112. It is remarkable that the gentile name of the Verres family is nowhere mentioned. In more than one passage of the Verrine orations, Cicero seems on the point of giving their full appellation to the Verres, but always withholds it apparently as notorious. It was probably Cornelius, although there seems to have been some connection also with the Caecilii Metelli. (Verrin. 2.2. 26, 56.) Sulla, or. his return from Greece B. C. 83, created a numerous body of Cornelii by emancipating slaves and filling up vacancies in the senate with aliens and freedmen (Appian, App. BC 1.100); and at the time of the younger Verres's praetorship Cornelius was the most ordinary surname at Rome. (Cic. Corn. p. 450, Orelli.) Now we know of no extraordinary increase of the Gens Caecilia at this period, while the augmentation of the Gens Cornelia is certain. (Comp. Appian, l.c. with Cic. Ver. 3.28, 49.) The connection of the Caecilii Metelli with Verres, if not assumed for a temporary purpose (2.2. 26, 56), may perhaps be thus explained. If the elder Verres were originally a freedman or a kinsman of Sulla, and raised by him to senatorian rank, he would take in the one case or he would bear in the other the gentile name of Cornelius. That he was Sulla's kinsman is not altogether improbable, since that branch of the Gens Cornelia had fallen into decay (Plut. Sull. 1), may have contained more than one cognomen. But Sulla's fourth wife was Caecilia Metella, daughter of L. Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus [No. 13], and through her Verres, when it suited him, may have claimed affinity with the Metelli. Verres may even have derived his relationship to this house or to the Cornelii from his mother's family, whom Cicero mentions with respect (2.1. 49). On the other hand, among Cicero's innumerable taunts, none directly reproaches Verres with a servile or even an obscure origin, although he mentions many ignoble Cornelii, e. g. Artemidorus Cornelius, a physician and others "jampriden improbi, repente Cornelii" (2.1. 26, 27. 3. 28, 49, 4.13.30). The elder Verres and his kinsman Q. Verres are described as veteran bribers and corrupters (1.8. 9), but without allusion to servile or libertine birth. Verres itself too is a genuine Italian name, like Capra, Taurus, Ovinius, Siillius, and seems to have had its proper correlate in Scrofa (Varr. R. R. 2.1). The question probably admits of no positive solution, and it is even possible that as in the cases of Marius, Mummius, and Sertorius, who bore no family-name, the family of Verres may have borne no gentile name. (See Muretus, Var. Lect. 3.8.)
The impeachment of Verres derives its importance from the cause rather than the criminal. We have no evidence to his character beyond the charges of his great antagonist, and even the defence of him which Hortensius published and Quintilian read (Inst. 10.1.23), referred to some other prosecution. To depict Verres in Cicero's colours would be to draw an anomalous monster, and to transcribe the greater portion of the impeachment. It will be more consistent, therefore, with our purpose and our limits to refer generally to the Verrine orations for the catalogue of his crimes and the delineation of his character, especially since the notorious licence of ancient invective, and the circumstances under which Cicero spoke, render exaggeration certain, while we have no means of sifting or softening it. Individually Verres was a very ordinary person, with brutal instincts, manners, and associates, conspicuous in a demoralized age, and in an incurably corrupt class of men, -- the provincial governors under the commonwealth, -- for his licentiousness, rapacity, and cruelty. Generically as the representative of that class Verres became an important personage, sinoe upon the issue of his trial depended the senate's tenure of the judicia, the prevalence of the oligarchy, and the very existence of the provincial and colonial
That he took an active part in Sulla's proscription may be inferred from Cicero ( Verrin. 1.1.16), who, while exploring the darkest recesses of the defendant's life, purposely passes over his apprenticeship in crime,--" Omni tempore Sullano ex accusatione circumnscripto"--as common to the times, and not peculiar to the man. For a like reason he excepts from exposure whatever vices and excesses Verres had displayed or committed previous to his holding a public magistracy.
Verres was quaestor to Cn. Papirius Carbo (No. 7) in his third consulship B. C. 82. He was therefore at that period of the Marian faction (Schol. Gronov. in Verrin. p. 387, Orelli), which he quitted for that of Sulla, betraying Carbo by desertion, and the republic by embezzling the monies with which as quaestor he was intrusted for the administration of Cisalpine Gaul. Sulla sent his new adherent to Beneventum, where he was allowed a share of the confiscated estates, but at the same time narrowly watched by the veterans. He was, however, called to account for his receipts from the treasury by the quaestores aerarii for B. C. 81, with what result is unknown. Verres next appears in the suite of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (No. 6), praetor of Cilicia in B. C. 80-79, and one of the most rapacious and oppressive of the provincial governors. On the death of the regular quaestor C. Malleolus, Verres, who had been Dolabella's legatus, became his pro-quaestor. In Verres Dolabella found an active and unscrupulous agent, and, in return, connived at his excesses. But the proquaestor proved as faithless to Dolabella as he had been to Carbo; turned evidence against him on his prosecution by M. Scaurus in B. C. 78, and by shifting his own crimes to the praetor's account, and stipulating for a pardon for himself, mainly contributed to the verdict against Dolabella. During this pro-quaestorship Verres first acquired or affected a taste for the fine arts. It is not clear, indeed, whether Cicero believed him to possess a genuine relish for the beautiful, or whether he considered the legate's appropriations as a mere brutal lust of pillage, and a means of purchasing the support of the oligarchy at Rome. The criminality of the acts was the same. But Cicero at one time describes Verres, ironically, as a fine gentleman and a connoisseur ; and, at another, as better fitted for a porter than an artist (Verrin. 2.4. 44, 57). The wealth Verres acquired in Achaia and Asia, he employed in securing a praetorship in B. C. 74. The lot assigned to him the urbana jurisdictio, and he rehearsed at Rome the blunders, the venality, and the licence, which afterwards marked his Sicilian administration. His official duties were mostly discharged by his clerks and his freedwoman and mistress Chelidon. Without the interest of the latter, indeed, nothing could be obtained from him, and she, accordingly, charged high for exerting it. The city-praetor was the guardian of orphans; the curator of public buildings, civil and religious; the chief judge in equity; and the sitting magistrate within the bounds of the pomaerium, during his year of office. In each of these departments, according to Cicero, Verres violated a trust. He defrauded the son of his predecessor in the Cilician quaestorship, C. Malleolus, of his patrimony : he exacted from the heir and executors of P. Junius a heavy fine for neglecting to repair the temple of Castor; and intercepted the fine from the state's coffers; and, instead of rebuilding, whitewashed the defective columns of the temple; his edicts varied with the person or rather with the price, and were drawn in defiance of precedent, law, and common sense; and unless his political preferences were for the moment suspended by his avarice or his lust, his summary decisions were invariably favourable to the oligarchical party. In B. C. 74, occurred the notorious Judicium Juniannm [JUNIUS, No. 5]. In this transaction, Verres was not so deeply involved as others of his party; but neither was he exempt from the ignominy attached to the verdict, since he declared that the list of the judices had been tampered with, and their signatures forged, him self having previously subscribed the list, and sanctioned the verdict officially. The repeal of Sulla's laws had been guarded against by the dictator himself, who imposed a mulct on any person who should attempt to abrogate or modify any portion of the Cornelian constitution. But in B. C. 75, M. Aurelius Cotta as consul brought forward a bill for exempting the tribunes of the plebs from that clause of the Lex Cornelia which excluded them from the higher offices of the commonwealth, and Q. Opimius, tribune of the plebs, introduced it to the comitia. Opimius, in the following year, was condemned and fined by Verres for this offence : his property was put up to auction, and Verres enriched himself equally at the expense of the defendant and the treasury. On the expiration of his praetorship, Verres obtained the wealthiest and most important province of the empire. Sicily was not merely the granary of Rome, but from its high civilisation, its productive soil and vicinity to Italy, had long been the favourite resort of Roman capitalists. The yoke of conquest pressed more lightly on this island than on any other of the state's dependencies. The ancient Greek nobility had rather gained than lost by their change of rulers : the fiscal regulations of the Hieros and Gelos were retained : the exemptions which the Marcelli had granted and the Scipios confirmed, were respected; and the Sicilians hardly regretted their turbulent democracies in the enjoyment of personal freedom and social luxury. Verres and his predecessor Sacerdos came to the government of that province at a critical period. Two servile wars had recently swept over the island, and during the two years of Verres's administration, Italy itself was ravaged by Spartans, and the Mediterranean swarmed with the Cilician pirates. The loss or the retention of Sicily was, therefore, an object of higher moment than ever to Rome; and even an ordinary praetor might have risked by supineness or caprice this portion of the state demesnes. But in Verres, Sicily received a governor, who, even in tranquil times, would have tried its allegiance or provoked disaffection. Accompanied by his son, his daughter's husband, and a suite of rapacious clerks, parasites and pandars, he began his extortions even before he landed in the island. No class of its inhabitants was exempted from his avarice, his cruelty, or his insults. The wealthy had money or works of art to yield up; the middle classes night be made to pay heavier imposts ;